Funny Guy a determined winner in Albany Stakes

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The versatile Funny Guy switched back to his preferred surface and became a stakes winner for the second time when holding safe a late rally from Bankit to capture the $250,000 Albany Stakes, main event on Friday’s New York Showcase card at Saratoga.

Funny Guy returned to the main track for the 1 1/8-mile Albany off a pair of second-place finishes behind Rinaldi in New York-bred turf stakes at Belmont Park and at Saratoga earlier this summer. The son of Big Brown became a stakes winner during the spring going 6 1/2 furlongs over a sloppy track at Aqueduct.

With regular rider Rajiv Maragh aboard, Funny Guy rated in midpack off the early pace of tepid 5-2 favorite Not That Brady before swinging four wide to commence his bid into the stretch. Funny Guy readily overtook the tiring leader near midstretch, edged clear, then withstood a late surge from Bankit. The latter, who trailed the field for the opening five furlongs, advanced inside on the second turn, angled widest into the stretch, continued willingly down the center of the track but fell a head shy of the winner at the end.

Doups Point finished another 2 3/4 lengths farther back in third while never menacing the top pair at the end. Not That Brady was a tiring fourth followed by Blindwillie McTell, Just Right, Kazmania, Daddy Knows, and Dancers for Token.

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Funny Guy is owned in partnership by Gatsas Stables, Randy Hill, and Swick Stable and trained by John Terranova. The same team sent out Funny Guy’s 2-year-old half-brother, Three Jokers, to win his maiden earlier on the card. Funny Guy completed the distance over a fast track in 1:49.35 and paid $17.

“He’s been versatile on both turf and dirt although ultimately he’s better on dirt, we kind of knew that after the last couple of races,” said Terranova. “He’s just a good horse who likes to run and he will tolerate the turf. We ran for a couple of nice purses the last two times but we ran into [Jimmy Bond's] horse Rinaldi, who’s a really good turf horse, and he just wasn’t good enough.”

Terranova said he spoke to Maragh before the race about their strategy and fortunately things worked out about the way they’d planned.

“There was a bit of pace in here, so we talked about just letting him get comfortable and let him do his thing,” said Terranova. “He’s a really smart colt, he’s really handy, he can go inside of horses, outside, he’s taken a lot of dirt, so it really doesn’t matter. It looked like he had to kind of muscle his way through there, and when I saw Rajiv take another hold of him at the five-sixteenths pole I knew he had a lot of run. I just said 'All right, let’s just get a clear run down the stretch,' and he put him in the right spot to get it done.”

Terranova said he’d likely keep Funny Guy on the main track once getting back to Belmont Park with the $250,000 Empire Classic a possible goal during the fall.