SARATOGA, N.Y. -- Joe and Anne McMahon are battling colds, but nothing can dim the elation they've felt since the colt they foaled and raised on their thoroughbred farm knocked the racing world on its Funny Cide.

Born at McMahon of Saratoga Thoroughbreds, Funny Cide became the first New York-bred horse to win the Kentucky Derby when he pulled off the upset in the 129th running on May 3. The chestnut gelding roared back with a 9 3/4-length victory in the Preakness, setting up a shot at the Triple Crown on June 7 in the Belmont Stakes, run on Funny Cide's home track.

Not bad for a product of a farm that's been in the full-time breeding business for less than a quarter century, a mere blip on the timelines of the bigger and more storied operations in Kentucky.

"It's like the guy who says he's going to be a baseball player and turns into Mickey Mantle,'' Joe McMahon said one recent sunny morning in the kitchen of the 200-year-old brick farmhouse he shares with Anne, his wife of 33 years.

The McMahons met at the nearby Saratoga Race Course in the late 1960s, after the racing season had ended. He was from the nearby mill town of Mechanicville, a backstretch hand working on the offseason maintenance crew. She hailed from Rhode Island, a Skidmore College freshman taking her English professor's dog for a walk on the empty track grounds.

"It's really hard to stay away from the racetrack, even in the offseason,'' Anne said.

They've been partners ever since.

A year after getting married in 1970, they bought a former Christmas tree farm just minutes from the track, where the leafy neighborhoods of Saratoga Springs give way to the rolling countryside of the Town of Saratoga. They started out as thoroughbred trainers, racing the horses they bred, then decided around 1980 to concentrate exclusively on breeding.

Now, the McMahon's 350-acre farm handles 120 mares a year, with a foal crop that averages 80 to 85 a season. Stallions standing stud at the farm include Personal Flag and Regal Classic, each winners of more than $1 million in their racing careers.

In a breeding partnership with Kentucky's WinStar Farm, McMahon supplied the mare -- Belle's Good Cide -- and WinStar the stallion -- Distorted Humor -- that produced Funny Cide, who was born in 2000 in a green barn with white trim. Today, a bedsheet with the words "1st Home of Funny Cide'' lets visitors know where the history-making colt entered the world.

Although impregnation occurred at WinStar, Funny Cide is considered a New York-bred because a thoroughbred's state affiliation is determined by where the foal is dropped, not conceived. Then it was up to the McMahons to raise him, never a sure thing considering the fragile nature of foals.

"He was a vigorous, healthy foal,'' Joe McMahon said. "As he got older, he did show he had a mind of his own.''

The McMahons sold Funny Cide in 2001 for $22,000 at Fasig-Tipton's preferred yearling sale in Saratoga Springs. He was later bought for $75,000 by Jack Knowlton of Saratoga Springs and his nine co-owner pals.

After winning the first two legs of the Triple Crown, Funny Cide has five victories and earnings of well over $1 million for the partnership, which includes six high school pals from Sackets Harbor, on the eastern end of Lake Ontario.

Funny Cide has put New York-breds "on the map,'' Joe McMahon said. With more than 400 thoroughbred farms from the Hudson Valley to the western Finger Lakes region, New York breeders could reap benefits from Funny Cide's run to glory, no matter what happens in the Belmont.

Funny Cide's Derby and Preakness wins have done more for the state's breeding program than 30 years' worth of advertising in thoroughbred publications, said Martin Kinsella, executive director of the New York Thoroughbred Breeding and Development Fund.

Created 30 years ago by the state as a green space preservation entity, the public benefit corporation promotes New York's breeding industry.

"As soon as he won the Kentucky Derby, the phone began to ring off the hook'' with calls from people asking how to get involved with New York-breds, Kinsella said.

For the McMahons, three decades of working in what is essentially a 365-day-a-year business has paid off. They were at Churchill Downs when Funny Cide won at 12-1 odds, beating the best to capture the world's most famous horse race.

"What it really does is make the point that you don't have to be Kentucky-bred, that you can be foaled at a little farm in upstate New York and still be a champion,'' Joe McMahon said.

Depending on how Funny Cide runs in the Belmont, there's talk of entering him in Saratoga's Travers Stakes. If that happens, expect to find Joe and Anne McMahon amid what's likely to be a record crowd at the track where their partnership began.