Empire Maker's absence in Baltimore this weekend will give new meaning to the slogan "New York-breds . . . they start with an advantage." When trainer Bobby Frankel finally ended his "Will he? Won't he?" flip-flopping Saturday by announcing that Empire Maker wouldn't run, a lot of juice disappeared from the second leg of the Triple Crown. First, a gelding born in the Empire State wins the Kentucky Derby, and now the Preakness lacks sex appeal.

The rubber match between Funny Cide and the Derby favorite would have been fun. Could the Cinderella horse that cost only $75,000 again knock off the blueblood owned by the Arab prince? Did the wide trip and bruised foot do in Empire Maker at Churchill Downs, or was he overrated and was Funny Cide unfairly downgraded after finishing only half a length behind him in the Wood Memorial? As so often happens in this uncertain universe, there will be no answers for a while, and maybe never.

Not having to take on Empire Maker for the third time in five weeks isn't breaking the hearts of Funny Cide's connections. With him out of the way, taking another million-dollar stakes got a lot easier.

Jack Knowlton, managing partner of Funny Cide's owner, Sackatoga Stable, still has great respect for Empire Maker, and he won't miss him. "He is a tremendous horse," Knowlton said Thursday, "and I don't think there's any way you can argue that it isn't to our benefit."

Funny Cide's trainer, Barclay Tagg, isn't keen on racing his new star on short rest, but duty calls.

"Nobody likes bringing a horse back in two weeks against this caliber of competition," he said. "You'd like to have three or four weeks off before this race, but that's how the Triple Crown comes up."

The classics always take their toll, but rarely have so many promising animals dropped out so early. There aren't many healthy, top-class 3-year-olds left among a generation that was highly regarded over the winter. Last season's top two 2-year-olds, the undefeated champion Vindication and the multiple-stakes winner Toccet, haven't raced this year because of injuries, and a slew of others are sidelined. It happens every year, and it's so predictable it's depressing.

"There are many more lows than highs," Tagg said. "Any morning you can come in to the barn and find something that went wrong overnight. They're big, strong, fragile animals, and you're asking them to do something that nature didn't intend them to do."

Mother Nature is a tricky old girl, and sometimes she creates problems that turn out to be blessings in disguise. Funny Cide never would have been gelded if both, not just one, of his testicles had descended normally. The operation probably made him a better racehorse.

Tagg thinks so, and his next two sentences will freeze the souls of breeders from Lexington to Japan.

"I'm all for geldings,'' Tagg said. ''Probably 98 percent of them should be gelded. I don't think that it takes the fire out of them. I just think they focus better; they make a better racehorse. Some of the greatest racehorses we ever had were geldings. Kelso, maybe the greatest, was a gelding and five times Horse of the Year. John Henry won the Arlington Million when he was 9 years old. Forego was a magnificent gelding. They were all strong and successful and all stayed sound late in their careers."

Thinning the stallion herd by 98 percent? Improving the breed never had a more radical solution. Still, there's no doubt geldings last longer and hold top form much longer than entire horses. That's Knowlton's dream for Funny Cide, who will compete as long as he's healthy and in form.

''To be honest, yeah, if he were a colt, we'd be getting multimillion offers for him to be a stud,'' Knowlton said. ''But we have the opportunity just to have an awful lot of fun with this horse. We're getting a sense that he may become the people's horse."

No other Derby winner is in training, with injuries and stud fees the main reasons. A minor problem often leads to retirement so owners can cash in as soon as possible. For the first time in 74 years, the winner of America's greatest race can't contribute to the gene pool, and Knowlton's group of 10 small-time investors has no interest in commercial breeding anyway.

''Just look at the money people spend to have a nice horse,'' he said. ''We've got one. There's nothing that would tell me, even if we had millions of dollars, that we're ever going to find one as nice as this. So why don't we enjoy him?"

Although Empire Maker blew his chance for immortality, he'll be given every opportunity to live on through his children. His pedigree is more regal than Queen Elizabeth's is, so Juddmonte Farms will hook him up with aristocratic mares. Even if he never wins again, he need not fear the ultimate change of equipment, the unkindest cut of all.