Citation Caught the Brass Ring in the Gold Cup

I guess the greatest horse race I will ever see was the San Juan Capistrano at Santa Anita between Noor and Citation in 1950.

There are those who think Citation was the greatest race horse of our time and I could be one of them. But he never could beat Noor.

Most horsemen thought it was a shame. Citation bent a hoof after winning the Triple Crown in ’48 and was laid off a year. When he came back, they were afraid he wasn’t quite himself so they took him out to California for some easy money.

I was at Santa Anita the day he arrived, walking off the train at the siding there, and the trainer, Jimmy Jones, a round-faced little man who smiled a lot, was fussy about who came around him.

“Are you really going to run him?” I wanted to know.

Jones laughed. “We didn’t come out here to put him in the Rose Parade,” he said.

Actually, they came out here to make him the first million-dollar horse. Big Cy had earned $865,150 at the point where he broke down and his owners, Calumet Farm, figured getting the rest from the Hollywood horses would be a lock.

I learned a lot hanging around Jimmy and Citation that month. I learned that a sloppy track is the same as a fast track when Jones dropped Cy into a six-furlong race in a downpour that had washed out a Snead-Hogan golf playoff cross-town. I thought for his first race in over a year, a horse was owed a fast surface.

“It’ll be fast,” Jimmy predicted.

It was. Cy ran it in 1:11.

I learned that time didn’t mean anything to a great horse. Jones told me the story: The stable had Coaltown, who could run through sound. Coaltown would blister six-furlongs in 1:08 2/5. Citation would run it in 1:10 4/5. Then they would hook up in a race and Citation would beat Coaltown by three lengths. In 1:10 4/5.

Citation could do everything. He won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness, took a little side trip over to the Jersey Derby, won that, then won the Belmont.

He beat older horses that year in the two-mile Jockey Club Gold Cup. He was so good, he ran in a Pimlico Special Stakes--and not one horse contested it. Their trainers didn’t want their horses’ hearts broken. He had the race track to himself--and still ran 1:59 4/5.

Then they put him in the Santa Anita Handicap and I remember standing in the paddock when this great black horse came into view. I whistled.

“Boy, he looks as if he could runover everything!” I allowed.

“Don’t bet he won’t,” said Mrs. Connie Ring, the noted owner standing nearby.

And that was my introduction to Noor, a giant horse bred by the Aga Khan and owned by the sportsman car dealer, Charles S. Howard.

Citation never could catch Noor. He gave away 22 pounds--132 to 110--in the Handicap that year but in the 1 3/4-mile Capistrano, they brought them closer together,Citation’s 130 to Noor’s117.

It was, to all intents and purposes, a match race. Race horses ordinarily are fainthearted creatures, but these two ran head and head for over a mile. Johnny Longden won the race. He took Noor to the outside and forced Steve Brooks, on Citation, to whip left-handed or not at all. Mostly, it was not at all.

Twenty years later in this race, there was a dead heat--Fiddle Isle and Quicken Tree--and to me, they were no closer than Citation and Noor. It was the gamest, gruelingest race I have ever seen a race horse run.

It was sad. It was like Hogan missing a two-foot putt for an Open, Louis unable to get up at the bell, Ruth popping out, or Mays not able to get to a fly ball.

Citation didn’t get his million that year in California, but I bring this up because this week at Hollywood Park, they’re running the renewal of the race in which he finally went over the top, the Hollywood Gold Cup.

The race is 50 years old this year and some of the greatest names in American turf history have run in it--the great Seabiscuit, Swaps, Round Table, Gallant Man, Affirmed, Native Diver. None greater than Citation.

The horses who are in it this year aren’t Citations. They had a nice sort of a colt, Ruhlmann, given periodically to breaking clocks and track records, but he’s out, leaving the spotlight to the kinds of horses who take turns beating each other.

The race pays half a million nowadays but it paid $137,000 when Citation ran his last race here.

They brought Citation up to the Gold Cup carefully that season--a couple of sprints at Bay Meadows where he ran third both times at odds-on and then on to Hollywood Park where, after two losses, he came to form, winning the last three races of his life.

He managed to sneak into the Gold Cup at 120 pounds. At 120 pounds, Citation could handle an airplane.

He finally got his million--the 100 grand put him at $1,085,760. It was a lot of money in 1951 and Citation was the first million-dollar horse. Today, they have $80,000 claiming races but Citation went out the way he came in --with a visit to the winner’s circle.

The horse who wins the Gold Cup at Hollywood Sunday should be proud to stand on the same ground.