By Frank Angst

With a top-ranked three-year-old in his barn and the Road to the Triple Crown season moving into full swing on Saturday, Barclay Tagg is feeling just fine.

Tagg conditioned 2003 Kentucky Derby (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) winner Funny Cide and while he knows the next few weeks could get wild, the veteran trainer expects things to be a bit calmer this time around with Holy Bull Stakes (G3) winner Nobiz Like Shobiz. The Albert the Great colt will be entered for the Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) on Saturday at Gulfstream Park.

Nobiz Like Shobiz has provided Tagg some serenity. While Funny Cide always will have a special place in Tagg’s heart, the Distorted Humor gelding kept Tagg on his toes in ‘03.

“Funny Cide was much more fractious. He had a lot of good qualities about him but he was pretty difficult to train,” Tagg said. “[Nobiz Like Shobiz] is rather easy to train. I mean, you have to be very careful with any of them. He's a big strong horse and he feels good. He'll come leaping off the track if you're not careful, and they could always have a shot at injuring themselves, and he'll buck and kick in the barn or the stall and things like that, but all in all, he's a big puppy dog compared to [Funny Cide]."

Of course, one more detail about Nobiz Like Shobiz has Tagg feeling good.

“He's very, very fast,” Tagg said.

While Funny Cide managed to stay a bit under the radar leading up to the Derby, a race he entered off back-to-back runner-up finishes in the Louisiana Derby (G2) and the Wood Memorial Stakes (G1), Nobiz Like Shobiz grabbed the early spotlight and could command more attention with a victory on Saturday. While Tagg gladly would take either role, as long as he is confident in the horse, he suspects being one of the favorites could be easier.

“With [Funny Cide], I was getting a lot of criticism from the media--and everybody else that walked by--because everybody said he couldn’t go 1¼ miles and he wasn’t a Derby type of horse. So you had that kind of criticism and everything else that goes with it,” Tagg said. “This year, we don’t have any criticism so far that I know of.”

An Elizabeth Valando homebred, Nobiz Like Shobiz won two of three starts last year, capped by a 6½-length romp in the Remsen Stakes (G2) at Aqueduct. He opened this season with a clear victory in the one-mile Holy Bull at Gulfstream and will try two turns for the first time in Saturday’s 1 1/8-mile test.

Tagg, 69, who worked with show horses in college and later rode jumpers, began training Thoroughbreds in 1971. He has trained several top horses, including Grade 1-winning filly Island Fashion, but is best known for his work with Funny Cide. He thinks that experience will help if Nobiz Like Shobiz continues down the Triple Crown path, but he also will adjust as needed.

“Well, I always try to keep the hullabaloo to a minimum,” Tagg said. “I have my own method of doing things and it seems to work well for the good horses and I just follow a pattern … I certainly wouldn’t try to do things exactly like I did with [Funny Cide].”—Frank Angst

Frank Angst is a Thoroughbred Times senior writer