Z – #3 – Citation – horseracing20thcentury99.com

Top Ten Horses Overall Twentieth Century

#3

Citation

(1947 - 1951)

Citation drawing away from Better Self on his way to winning the 1948 Belmont Stakes and becoming America’s eighth Triple Crown winner.

Photo: BloodHorse Library

PEDIGREE

B H (USA) 1945

OWNER

Calumet Farm

TRAINER

Jimmy Jones

BREEDER

Calumet Farm

Some Facts

Citation was born at Calumet Farm on April 11th, 1945, and was one of a sensational Calumet crop that year which included champions Coaltown and Bewitch, who like Citation were sired by Bull Lea. A fourth youngster, Free America, a son of Blenheim II, never won a championship but would eventually become a two-time stakes winner.
Citation’s sire, Bull Lea, was a good horse on the race track, winning ten of twenty-seven starts, among them six stakes, including the Blue Grass and the Widener Challenge Handicap.
Citation was out of Hydroplane II, who was sired by Hyperion. He grew to be 16 hands at his withers, weighed 1,075 pounds, and was the only one of her eight offspring to win a stake race.
In Citation’s first year on the track as a two-year-old in 1947, Coaltown, and not Citation, was expected to be Calumet’s “Big Horse,” but he was laid up with an injury and did not race at two. Coaltown was no match for Cy when they met, finishing second in the 1948 Kentucky Derby and third in the Sysonby Mile Stakes. To validate Citations position on this list, Coaltown was co-Horse of the Year in 1949 when he won ten stakes.
Citation’s three-year-old campaign was extraordinary and is possibly the best single season in the annals of North American horseracing. He won 19 of 20 starts with one second-place finish and earned $709,470. He won sixteen stakes, including the Triple Crown, and defeated older horses all eight times he faced them. He also defeated the reigning Horse of the Year, Armed, in an allowance race on February 2^nd (when still technically a two-year-old). He defeated Armed again in the Seminole Handicap nine days later. Citation set four track records and finished his three-year-old season on a fifteen-race winning streak.
Citation’s thirteen winning distances were: 4.5F; 5F; 6F; 6.5F; 7F; 8F; 8.5F; 9F; 9.5F; 10F; 12F; 13F, and 16F (two miles). He also finished second by a nose in world record time in a 14F race.
In Citation’s Triple Crown run, he raced five times in forty-seven days. These races were the 8F Derby Trial (April 27th), 10F Kentucky Derby (May 1st), 9.5F Preakness Stakes (May 15th), 10F Jersey Derby (May 29th), and the 12F Belmont Stakes (June 12th). His combined margin of victory in these five races was 29 ¼ lengths.
Citation’s combined odds for his Triple Crown races totaled seventy cents, which is still second only to Count Fleet’s sixty cents.
Citation’s versatility was displayed when he won the Kentucky Derby on a sloppy track, the Preakness on a heavy track, and the Belmont Stakes on a fast track. His remarkable stamina was displayed when he won the Sysonby Mile by three lengths at Belmont Park over Fast Flight and Coaltown on September 29th, 1948, and three days later won the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup by seven lengths over Phalanx (the 1947 winner) and Beauchef.
Citation missed the entire 1949 racing season because of Osselets. Returning to the races, he won a six-furlong allowance race at Santa Anita (his first start in thirteen months). The victory was his sixteenth in a row, a record for North American major stake horses, which Cigar equaled in 1996 and was surpassed by Zenyatta in 2010. In Citation’s streak, he ran in three allowance races. In Cigar’s streak, he ran in two, while Zenyatta won a MSW and an allowance.
Citation’s owner, Warren Wright, was obsessed with Citation becoming the first North American racehorse to surpass $1 million in total earnings. He eventually did, retiring with earnings of $1,085,760. However, Citation struggled when he returned to the races after being away for thirteen months and still suffered the effects of his injury. When he did return, he was penalized unfairly by being assigned heavy weights. His return also led to his rivalry with Noor, who defeated him four times and was third to Citation’s second in the 1950 San Antonio Handicap.
Before Citation returned to the races in 1950, he was nominated for the Santa Anita Handicap, which was to be contested on February 25th. In those days, because of lengthy travel (by rail and not by air), the weights were assigned in December to allow prospective owners in the East time to prepare their horses and travel across the country. Because Citation had not raced for an entire year, the Santa Anita racing secretary assigned him 132 pounds, this impost, which was the highest ever for the Big Cap, being based on his career form up until his injury. In truth, Citation was not the same horse he was at three and was unfairly penalized. In comparison, Noor, who had won but a single race in North America in six starts, was assigned a feathery 110 pounds for the Big Cap. To show the calamity of the decision to assign Citation so much weight, in the San Antonio Stakes two weeks before, the winner was Ponder, who carried 128 pounds, while Citation finished second under 130 and Noor third under 114. Despite defeating Citation in the San Antonio, Ponder dropped four pounds while Citation gained two in the Big Cap. Noor, who finished just a half-length behind Citation in the San Antonio, dropped four pounds.
Citation’s famous rivalry with Noor saw them meet five times. (1) In the first, the San Antonio Handicap on February 11th, Citation (130 lbs.) finished second to Ponder with Noor (112 lbs.) a half-length further back. (2) In the Santa Anita Handicap on February 25th, Noor (110 lbs.) won by 1 ¼ lengths over Citation (132 lbs.). (3) In the 14F San Juan Capistrano on March 4th (back then, raced on dirt), Noor (117 lbs.) defeated Citation (130 lbs.) by a nose in world record time. (4) A little more than three months later, on June 17th at Golden Gate Fields, Noor (123 lbs.) defeated Citation (128 lbs.) by a neck in the 9F Forty-Niners Handicap in track record time. (5) And in their fifth meeting, the 10F Golden Gate Handicap on June 24th, Noor (127 lbs.), for the first time gave weight to Citation (126 lbs.) and defeated him by three lengths while setting a track record. After this latest loss, it was reported that Citation had become run down, and this would be his last race until April 18th, 1951, a period of ten months.
Despite carrying heavy weights in the latter part of his career, Citation never actually won a race while carrying 130 or more pounds, but he did come close. In an overnight handicap on January 26th, 1950, at Santa Anita, while carrying 130 pounds, he lost by a neck to Miche (114 lbs.), this defeat snapping his streak after sixteen straight wins. Citation showed remarkable courage and resilience in the 14-furlong San Juan Capistrano run on March 4th. Carrying 130 pounds to Noor’s 117, the two hooked up with five furlongs remaining and raced all out nose and nose to the wire. Films later showed that Citation had the lead one jump before the wire and one jump after they passed it, but at the wire, Noor had his nose in front. The fourteen furlongs equated to 110,880 inches. In a race that smashed the track record by 5 2/5^th seconds and set a new world record, Citation lost by a scant inch.
When Citation wanted to run fast, he could. On June 3rd, 1950, while running in the Golden Gate Mile at Golden Gate Fields, he set a new world record when he won it in 1:33 3/5, breaking Prevaricator’s track record by 4/5ths of a second. During the race, he passed the 6-furlong marker in 1:07 3/5, which was 3/5ths of a second faster than Bolero’s track record and 2/5ths of a second faster than Bolero’s world record (on a flat racetrack) set at Golden Gate on June 27th. In his race before, a 6F allowance at Golden Gate Fields on May 17^th, which Roman In won in 1:08 2/5, Citation was individually timed in 1:08 3/5. In the Forty-Niners Handicap, Noor was timed in 1:46 3/5, which broke the nine-furlong world record by 4/5ths of a second. Citation, who finished second by a neck, also bettered the world mark by 4/5ths of a second.
Citation made forty-five career starts, in forty-four of which there was betting (one was a bet-less walkover). Citation was favored in forty-two of them and was an odds-on winning favorite nineteen times while losing ten times at odds-on. Citation won one race at five cents on the dollar and six races at ten cents on the dollar.
Citation never ran at Monmouth Park, Saratoga, Aqueduct, Laurel, Hawthorne, or Gulfstream Park.
After winning his final three races in 1951, the last of which was the Hollywood Gold Cup, Jimmy Jones said that Citation was back to his old self for the first time since his three-year-old season. Even so, the Gold Cup was his final race.
At stud, Citation could best be described as a mediocre sire. Out of 271 registered foals, he had just twelve stake winners for a modest 4% success rate. Probably his best progeny was Fabius, which won the 1956 Preakness Stakes, was second in the Kentucky Derby, and third in the Belmont. In the Preakness, Fabius defeated Needles, the Derby and Belmont winner, thus denying that colt a Triple Crown.
In 2020, as part of a fundraiser for emergency relief efforts due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, a “Virtual Kentucky Derby” was held wherein the field included all 13 Triple Crown winners. Citation finished second by a half-length to Secretariat.
Citation was voted the champion two-year-old colt (1947), three-year-old colt (1948), handicap horse (1948 and 1951), and horse of the year in 1948. He was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in 1959.
Citation died on August 8th, 1970, at Calumet Farm and is buried there.