
Stars of Yesterday: Looking Back at Best Rebel Stakes Winners
The champ is back.
Citizen Bull, 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 Grade 3 $200,000 Robert B. Lewis Stakes in his 3-year-old debut on Feb. 1 at Santa Anita.
The win was the seventh straight Robert Lewis Stakes victory and 13th overall for Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert, who summed up Citizen Bull's performance during a postrace television interview by saying, "The champ is back."
Quickly recovering after bobbling at the start, Citizen Bull outsprinted stablemate Rodriguez to the lead, and later dispatched that rival along with a bid from Clock Tower down the backstretch. He then showed his class through the second turn and in 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.
"The 'Bull' looked good coming down (the stretch)," said Baffert, a six-time Kentucky 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."
Citizen Bull carved out fractions of :23.27, :47.06, and 1:10.99 enroute 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.
"When he made the lead, he kind of pinned his ears forward, and he was waiting around for company. He was just messing around," Garcia said. "He had one ear forward and one ear backwards, that means you have plenty of horse left."
As a 2-year-old last year, Citizen Bull won the FanDuel Breeders' Cup Juvenile presented by TAA as well as the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes presented by DK Horse in front-running fashion.
"Being on a superstar horse like this, it means a lot to me," Garcia said.
Baffert's three trainers trainees swept the trifecta in the five-horse race for 3-year-olds. 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. Rodriguez was 2 1/4 lengths ahead of show finisher Madaket Road.
"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."
The Robert B. Lewis Stakes distributed qualifying points toward the May 3 Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve 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 assures a race-ready Citizen Bull of a spot in the Derby field.
Clock Tower, a graded winner on turf, and an overmatched Valentines Candy completed the order of finish.
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 Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity in September. Perfect in three routes, Citizen Bull paid $3.80 for a $2 win wager as the favorite in the Robert B. Lewis Stakes.