Barclay Tagg rarely does things by the book.

Once, it was because he couldn't afford to.

And now that thoroughbred racing's man of the moment has money burning a hole in his pocket, he isn't about to.

"It's fun to listen to the hype and hear everyone say, 'It's impossible to do this and it's impossible to do that,' and then go out and do it,'' Tagg said.

A horse named Funny Cide has turned out to be the perfect foil for a trainer without one. For nearly 30 years, Tagg plied his trade on the Maryland racing circuit with little success and even less fanfare. All of a sudden, though, he is posing for pictures -- albeit reluctantly -- and sharing revealing stories about his past.

Having a Kentucky Derby winner in the barn has thrust the 65-year-old Tagg into the spotlight and drawn him out in ways that once seemed impossible.

But this much isn't about to change: Just as he did at the Derby, Tagg will bring Funny Cide in late for the Preakness and gamble he can beat his highly regarded rivals without the horse working out on the Pimlico Race Course oval even once.

The guys who wrote the book on winning the biggest races -- trainers like Bob Baffert, D. Wayne Lukas and Bobby Frankel -- always make sure their horses get to town early.

Funny Cide, on the other hand, was the last horse on the grounds at Churchill Downs for the Derby, arriving just three days before the race and beating favorite Empire Maker. That made the New York-bred gelding the first horse since Bold Forbes in 1976 to capture the first jewel of the Triple Crown races without a practice run on the famed Louisville track.

It also made Tagg unafraid to stick to his unconventional tactic a second time.

Funny Cide isn't scheduled to arrive at Pimlico until sometime around 3 a.m. EDT on Saturday, after a five-hour van ride from Tagg's training base at Belmont Park in New York. When Preakness officials and the media first learned of Tagg's plans after the Derby, they complained the champion's late arrival would hurt the buildup for the race. Tagg wouldn't budge.

"My job is to win the race with that horse,'' he replied. "And we can't make a circus clown out of him to do it. We're not trying to be snobs, or hiding from the people or anything, but he just can't be disturbed all the time.''

Anyone who knew Tagg before the Derby, or knew anything about him, shouldn't be surprised. The most remarkable thing about the first 30 or so years of his career might be simply that he survived them. In a racket marked by pessimism, his glass always seemed more empty than most.

Tagg got into the business as a steeplechase jockey, and when that didn't pan out, he tried training the jumpers. He turned out to be only marginally better at that, although resting his horses for a long time between races is one tactic he carried over from those days.

"I never had any really good horses. It was a struggle,'' Tagg recalled. "So I got out of it. I thought I'd struggle in something more lucrative.''

And struggle is exactly what he did. He tried training thoroughbreds in the mid-1970s, but the step up in class wasn't reflected in the quality or quantity of horses in his barn. He worked seven days a week, went on three vacations in 30 years and still never seemed to make up ground.

A single owner pulled out on him one Christmas Day, leaving Tagg with only one thoroughbred to train. He recalled walking into restaurants with no money and hoping someone would drop a dinner roll on the floor.

"I did it all the wrong way,'' he said. "It took forever.''

The wonder, then, might be that Tagg finally arrived.

When he came across Funny Cide, he actually was pointing the horse toward a series of New York races later in the year with a big bonus. All last winter, the pessimist in him kept adding to a list of reasons why he shouldn't bring the horse to Churchill Downs.

Then Funny Cide finished second to Empire Maker in the Wood Memorial, one of the most important Derby prep races. It trumped everything else on his list.

As the Derby neared, Tagg called Churchill Downs-based trainer Tony Reinstedler, a friend, and asked whether he could use one stall for the last four days of that week. Although Funny Cide was rounding into form so superbly that Tagg sensed something special was about to happen, he made sure the dark clouds never drifted far from his barn.

"At any point, you can find yourself at 5 o'clock in the morning feeling something strange in their leg,'' he said as the Derby neared, "and then it's all over.''

As it turned out, Barclay Tagg's excellent adventure was just beginning.

Come Saturday, he'll tempt fate again, loading a horse who has never taken a meaningful stride on the Pimlico strip into the starting gate. He'll discover, within two minutes or so, whether doing things his way was the right way or not.

Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org