The year was 1948, and there was a hint of dread in Eddie
Arcaro's mind; nagging doubt, stirred by the memory of Devil Diver six
years before. That year, Eddie Arcaro had been given his choice of
Greentree Stable horses to ride in the Kentucky Derby, and he chose
Devil Diver -- the wrong one. Devil Diver, the Kentucky Derby chart of
1942 said,
“did not respond to pressure,” and that memory filtered
through the years and the paddock bedlam at Churchill Downs, finding its
way back to Arcaro. It was a reminder that he had been wrong before; a
reprise of the long-repressed memory of watching Wayne Wright, dressed
in the same Greentree colors, win the Kentucky Derby aboard Shut Out.
Now, moments before the 1948 Kentucky Derby, Arcaro looked at an entrant named Coaltown and saw Shut Out. This time, Arcaro was dressed in the devil-red-and-blue of Calumet Farm, the same colors that fellow jockey Newbold Pierson wore as he stood beside his mount, the formidable Coaltown. If he was wrong about Devil Diver, Arcaro thought, there was the chance that he could be wrong again. Jockeys are notoriously poor handicappers.
Calumet trainer Ben Jones, who in a legendary collaboration with
his son and protégé, Jimmy, trained perhaps the greatest collection of
American horses ever to race beneath a single set of silks, reassured
Arcaro. “Citation,” Jones told his rider,
“can
catch any horse he can see.”
Though they were partnered in the wake of tragedy, by May 1, 1948, Arcaro knew Citation well.
Al Snider had been Citation’s principal rider during the colt's
two-year-old season, a year in which he would win eight races from nine
starts. Snider had ridden Citation to three of the four wins at Hialeah
Park that launched what would be perhaps the greatest three-year-old
campaign of any racehorse in history. But Snider was lost, and later
determined to have drowned while on a fishing trip in the Florida Keys
after having ridden Citation to victory in the Flamingo Stakes. Arcaro
and Citation were paired in Maryland after Jimmy Jones phoned the rider,
who already had three Kentucky Derby wins to his credit, and said:
“I'm calling you to put you on a Derby winner.”
Citation was promptly defeated in the Chesapeake Trial at Havre
de Grace, a loss for which new rider Arcaro took blame, but won the
Chesapeake Stakes and, upon arrival in Louisville, the Derby Trial.
Arcaro knew exactly how much horse he had inherited from the ill-fated
Snider. Still, the dark memory of Devil Diver had been refreshed in
Arcaro’s mind. He later recounted in his 1951 autobiography, I Ride to
Win,
“I kept remembering what old [Ben Jones] had told me; that the
horse Citation could not run down had not yet been born. ‘But what the
hell is this now?’ I said to myself. ‘Suppose Citation doesn't pick
Coaltown up when I call on him.’”
As Ben Jones gave him a leg up just before the 1948 Kentucky
Derby, Arcaro is alleged to have said.
“Are you sure I’m on the right one?”
And Jones is alleged to have answered, sharply:
“You’re on the right one.”
The horse Arcaro would ride in the Derby of 1948 and for the rest of that season quickly dispelled the untimely haunting by Devil Diver, though there would be a few anxious moments. Coaltown moved away to a six-length advantage while running over sloppy ground on the Churchill Downs backstretch. He was not, however, out of Citation’s sight.
“I knew I had the rest of the field beat by the half-mile pole,” Arcaro, still at that point uncertain of overtaking Coaltown, would say afterward. “I looked back and I knew the other horses were too drunk to cause us any trouble. We moved when I clucked to him and I could see we’d move on out at Coaltown.”
With a quarter-mile to run, Citation was at his stablemate’s flank and moving strongly. He was clear at the stretch call and 3 1/2 lengths in front of Coaltown at the wire, in hand, ears pricked.
Citation was the second phenomenon that resulted from particularly astute or simply fortuitous bloodstock acquisitions made by Warren Wright Sr. in the development of the Calumet Farm dynasty.
In 1936, while in the process of converting his farm from
standardbreds to thoroughbreds, Wright formed a syndicate that purchased
Blenheim II and imported him from England. Blenheim II sired Whirlaway,
Calumet’s first winner of the Triple Crown, in 1941. Whirlaway would
take his place as Calumet’s most important stallion, which raised the
necessity of finding mares suitable for the farm’s second-string stud,
Bull Lea. The search led Wright back to England, where he purchased
Hydroplane II, a mare by Hyperion. Her first two foals were unmemorable
but she produced a dark bay colt by Bull Lea from her third mating. The
colt's name would be drawn from the war raging throughout most of the
world and was devised by Mrs. Otto W. Lehmann, a friend of the Wright
family. “It was during the war and you were hearing a lot about
citations,” she would say.
“It seemed like a good name for a good horse;
an honorable mention for distinguished performance.”
Citation, distinguished indeed, rose to prominence at a time when the Calumet operation happily suffered an embarrassment of riches. The sprawling operation directed by Ben Jones was represented by Armed, Bewitch, and Faultless. Citation’s career began as a face in the crowd that included another future champion in Coaltown. He made four starts before Jones decided he was a stakes-class two-year-old. It is widely believed that Citation, even after having won the first five races of his career, was sacrificed when runner-up in the Washington Futurity in deference to maintaining Bewitch’s undefeated record. Citation concluded that season with victories in the Futurity Trial, the Futurity at Belmont and the Pimlico Futurity. He left an impression.
By the time Citation won the Kentucky Derby and turned his attention toward the Triple Crown, he was already known as “Big Cy” and attracting the attention of the great luminaries among horsemen of the era.
Early in 1948, before the Derby, legendary trainer “Sunny Jim”
Fitzsimmons said of Citation:
“Up to this point, Citation’s done more
than any horse I ever saw and I saw Man o’ War.”
Citation went on to win the Preakness by 5 1/2 lengths.
“If that’s all the competition we’re going to have,
he and I are going on a picnic,”
Arcaro said in Baltimore. Before his arrival in New York for
the Belmont, Citation won the Jersey Stakes at Garden State Park by 11
lengths, and then completed the Triple Crown sweep at Belmont with an
eight-length demolition of seven opponents, the sixth victory in a
streak that would reach 16, a record equaled by Cigar in the 1990s but
not yet surpassed. After having stalked Coaltown in the Derby, he led
the Preakness and Belmont Stakes at every call. Citation could come from
behind, but it was seldom necessary.
By the autumn of 1948, the Jones Boys, as they were known, were convinced that Citation was among the best thoroughbreds of any era.
“Citation is the better horse,”
Ben Jones told Pat Lynch, then of
the New York Journal-American. He was referring to Man o’ War.
“I think Citation shades him. Man o’ War was an
erratic sort and Citation has a perfect disposition. I’ve talked to a
lot of men who saddled horses against Man o’ War and they feel the same.”
Arcaro, his second Triple Crown etched in history, was no less effusive.
“Riding him is like driving a Cadillac,” he said. “You get that chunk of speed whenever you ask for it.”
On-demand speed, remarkable versatility, and uncanny athleticism were complimented by Citation’s durability. By current standards, Citation was truly an iron horse. He started nine times at age two. He won the Triple Crown in his 11th start of the 1948 season and he would win nine more races at distances from six furlongs to two miles while traveling that year from Florida to Maryland, Kentucky, New Jersey, Chicago, and finally California. Citation ran the table in a campaign that ended with his having won 15 straight races, 26 of 28 to that point in his career. One of those races, the winner-take-all Pimlico Special at equal weights, was a walkover. After the Special, Arcaro required treatment to unknot the muscles strained while restraining Citation.
Of course, Citation swept every possible championship in 1948 – champion three-year-old, handicap champion, Horse of the Year. When he concluded a campaign that had been launched on Feb. 2 at Hialeah Park with a victory in the Dec. 11 Tanforan Handicap in San Francisco, his career earnings of $865,150 (more than $7.9 million by today’s standards) left Citation just $53,335 short of Stymie’s all-time record.
It was a record that mattered to Warren Wright Sr.
It was after the final race of Citation’s unprecedented 1948 tour de force that an injury, which was later determined to be an osselet on the left-fore ankle, was found. Citation later developed nagging tendon problems and was sidelined for the entire 1949 season. He would never be the same.
Jimmy Jones took Citation to California in 1950 and a six-furlong allowance victory in January at Santa Anita extended his interrupted but nevertheless historic winning streak to 16. By most standards, Citation enjoyed a successful season, as he was never worse than second in nine starts. But the champion won only one more race after his return and was runner-up four times to Noor, an Irish-bred imported by Charles Howard, the owner of Seabiscuit, and the season’s eventual handicap champion.
It is inconceivable nowadays that a Triple Crown champion would race beyond age three, let alone six. Warren Wright Sr. died in 1950 before his last aspiration for Citation had been realized, but not before he expressed his wish that the Triple Crown winner would continue to race until he had not only surpassed Stymie’s earnings record, but also became the first American thoroughbred to surpass $1 million in earnings (more than $8.6 million by current standards). Citation was kept in training, but his early efforts in 1951 were not encouraging.
Still in California, where Steve Brooks replaced the Eastern-based Arcaro, Citation twice finished third at Bay Meadows and was fifth at Hollywood Park in his first three races at age six. Despite the discouraging beginning to what would be his last campaign, Jimmy Jones pressed on in the effort to see Citation fulfill Wright’s deathbed wish.
Citation responded with a flourish of three straight victories, the last in the Hollywood Gold Cup, which put his earnings over $1 million. Coincidentally, perhaps, the runner-up in that race as well as in his penultimate victory in the American Handicap was Bewitch, the Calumet mare who was the first ever to defeat Citation when both were two-year-olds. Bewitch, also coincidentally, became the all-time earnings leader among females with the runner-up share of the Hollywood Gold Cup’s $137,000 purse.
Mission accomplished, Citation, winner of 32 races from 45 starts, 10 times second and twice third, was formally retired two weeks later in a July 28 ceremony at Arlington Park. A crowd described as capacity and wildly appreciative cheered as he galloped past the grandstand. He was shipped from Chicago to Calumet, sharing a railroad car with Coaltown, and began a career at stud that was considered less than a success.
“Two things make Citation a great horse,”
Ben Jones said.
“First, he is far above the average in intelligence. Secondly, he can run any kind of race; come from behind or make his own pace. I’ve tried to fault him, but I just can’t find any holes. He’s the best. Maybe we’ll never see his likes again in our time. He was the best horse I ever saw. Probably the best horse anybody ever saw, I expect.”
Two great decades, the 1940s and ‘70s, have marked the history of the Triple Crown. Citation, the fourth Triple Crown winner of the era dominated by World War II, drew a curtain on the first and there would not be another three-year-old capable of racing’s most rare and difficult accomplishment for a quarter century. He would die at Calumet during the night of August 8, 1970, at the age of 25, the year of Secretariat’s birth and the dawn of the Triple Crown’s next golden era.
by Paul Moran