In winning his 13th Robert B. Lewis Stakes (G3) and seventh straight, Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert best summed up the Feb. 1 performance from Citizen Bull during a postrace television interview, saying, “The champ is back.”
Indeed, the Eclipse Award-winning juvenile male of last year returned just as racegoers remembered seeing him through the fall of 2024 when he won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) and American Pharoah Stakes (G1) in front-running fashion.
Quickly recovering after bobbling at the start, he outsprinted stablemate Rodriguez to the lead, and he dispatched that rival and a bid from Clock Tower down the backstretch. He then showed his class through the second turn and the lane, only feeling one left-handed strike from the riding crop of jockey Martin Garcia and pulling away to score by 3 3/4 lengths.
“He was fresh,” Garcia said, explaining Citizen Bull’s bobble at the break. “When I was warming him up, he just wanted to go and you could see that he was ready. When the gates opened it was like the ground broke underneath him. He just broke too fast. But right away he recovered.”
Garcia added of the colt’s performance in the later stages of the race: “When he made the lead, he kind of pinned his ears forward, and he was waiting around for company. He was just messing around; he wasn’t very focused. He had one ear forward and one ear backwards, that means you have plenty of horse left.”
He said, “Being on a superstar horse like this, it means a lot to me.”
Citizen Bull carved out fractions of :23.27, :47.06, and 1:10.99 en route to completing a mile on a fast track in 1:36.71. His time was just off Nysos ‘ clocking of 1:36.65 from last year. The race, previously run at 1 1/16 miles, was shortened to a mile in 2024.
Rodriguez, who fell back to fourth when appearing intimidated between rivals down the backstretch as Clock Tower pursued Citizen Bull, came back on to grab second once guided to the outside. He placed, 2 1/4 lengths ahead of Madaket Road , the show finisher. Baffert’s three trainees swept the trifecta in the five-horse race for 3-year-olds.
“My other horses ran really well,” Baffert said. “They are learning their styles, and they need a little more racing. We are happy and especially winning the Robert B. Lewis because he was one of my favorite clients of all time.”
Clock Tower, a graded winner on turf, and an overmatched Valentines Candy completed the order of finish.
The Robert B. Lewis Stakes distributed qualifying points toward the May 3 Kentucky Derby (G1) on a 20-10-6-4-2 scale to the five race participants. Citizen Bull, who entered Saturday’s race first on the Kentucky Derby leaderboard, maintains his top position, now with 60 points.
Churchill Downs uses qualifying points to promote the Derby and as a preference system when the race lures more than its capacity field size of 20 horses. Based on historical trends, 60 points comfortably assure a race-ready Citizen Bull of a spot in the Derby field.
“The ‘Bull’ looked good coming down (the stretch),” said Baffert, a six-time Derby winner. “It’s funny—you see him and you don’t realize that he has those gears. He won’t show you that in the morning, but he does have gears.”
The three Baffert trainees share common ownership with the principals of SF Racing, Starlight Racing, Madaket Stables, Dianne Bashor, Determined Stables, Bob Masterson, Tom Ryan, Waves Edge Capital, and Catherine Donovan. Stonestreet Stable is also a partner in Rodriguez and Citizen Bull.
Their partnership focuses on buying well-bred young male horses and developing their best runners into top-class stakes winners and, in turn, valuable stallion prospects.
Ryan and Barbara Banke of Stonestreet Stable led Citizen Bull into the winner’s circle after the Robert B. Lewis Stakes.
Co-owners Barbara Banke (left) and Tom Ryan lead Citizen Bull and jockey Martin Garcia into the winner’s circle after the Robert B. Lewis Stakes
Bred by Robert and Lawana Low in Kentucky with the mating of Into Mischief to the Distorted Humor mare No Joke , Citizen Bull was purchased for $675,000 from the Taylor Made Sales Agency consignment at the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale.
Into Mischief, the leading North American general sire for the past six calendar years, stands for $250,000 at Spendthrift Farm near Lexington. Besides Citizen Bull, fellow Baffert trainee Barnes is another graded stakes-winning 3-year-old for the stallion in 2025.
Citizen Bull is 4-0-1 in five starts with $1,421,000 in earnings. His lone defeat came when he ran third in the Del Mar Futurity (G1) in September. Perfect in three routes, he paid $3.80 for a $2 win wager as the favorite in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes.
