Cide unlikely for Travers test

Kentucky Derby winner Funny Cide is unlikely to make the line up for next Saturday’s Grade One Travers Stakes at Saratoga according to trainer Barclay Tagg.

The three-year-old gelding, who also won the Preakness Stakes before being denied the Triple Crown in the Belmont Stakes, finished a well-beaten third on his last start in the Haskell Invitation but he was found to be running a temperature the next day.

Since then, Tagg has kept Funny Cide on the easy list and the son of Distorted Humor has been limited to jogging around the track this week after he returned an unsatisfactory blood test.

“I kind of doubt if I’ll run him,” Tagg told www.bloodhorse.com.

“I’m sure enough not positive yet. I’d like to be able to say, ‘No, I’m not going to run him’, then you wouldn’t have to come over anymore.

“Personally, I’d like to run him, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to.”

Tagg has not completed ruled out the Saratoga race though and he could clash with his Belmont Stakes conqueror Empire Maker again.

“If he’s bucking and kicking on Monday and his blood is good and everything is real good I might be tempted to, but I kind of really doubt it,” he added.

If Funny Cide does not make the field for the Travers Stakes, Tagg believes the horse will be well enough for an autumn campaign.

“I think he’ll be fine. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea to run him right back,” Tagg said. “I don’t need to kill the horse. He’s got the rest of his life.

“I think he’s had a more stressful campaign than any other horse that has been campaigning this year.

“You don’t see a lot of horses go through the whole Triple Crown thing and keep on running very much. Very few of them, actually. It’s tough on them. Very tough on them.”