In this article we’re going to briefly go over the career of one of the most famous horses in racing history, Citation.
If you look past the losses that Citation sustained at the end of his career, this has to have been one of the greatest horses in racing history if you simply look at his accomplishments. Citation was a horse that was not only blessed with blinding speed but with great staying power. The horse just never tired. Add to that a killer instinct that literally willed him past the other horses and this horse was almost unbeatable until he just got too old to do it anymore.
Over the course of Citation’s career there were many changes. After the patriarch of Calumet Farms, Warren Wright, died, trainer Ben Jones started to hand over more responsibility of handling Citation to his son Jimmy. He ultimately took this horse to a place where no other horse had been to that time; retiring as a millionaire in 1951. Unfortunately, the losses he sustained in the last 2 years of his career greatly diminished what he had accomplished in the eyes of others.
The truth is, racing was never easy for Citation in spite of his natural talent....