Pedigree fun facts: Citizen Bull

Jan 09, 2025 Kellie Reilly/Brisnet.com

Our “Pedigree fun facts” series returns for the Road to the 2025 Kentucky Derby, beginning with Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) winner Citizen Bull.

Entering the year atop the domestic leaderboard, Citizen Bull is just one of a veritable phalanx of hopefuls by the great patriarch Into Mischief. Other prominent three-year-olds by Into Mischief include Barnes, Patch Adams, Sovereignty, and Tappan Street.

Preamble on sire Into Mischief

Into Mischief is already responsible for two Kentucky Derby (G1) winners, Authentic (2020) and Mandaloun (2021). If he can sire three, Into Mischief would tie the all-time record shared by 19th-century stallions Virgil and Falsetto as well as 20th-century luminaries *Sir Gallahad III and Bull Lea. Moreover, Into Mischief factors as the paternal grandfather of 2024 Derby victor Mystik Dan, by Into Mischief’s son Goldencents.

The perennial leading North American sire, Into Mischief just smashed his own single-season progeny earnings record. His offspring amassed more than $35.4 million in purses in 2024. Citizen Bull did his part toward that total, and his Juvenile victory gave Into Mischief a record-tying eighth Breeders’ Cup win as a sire.

Because of the number of Into Mischiefs on the Derby trail, it would get pretty repetitive to keep diving into his pedigree when we explore his sons. So we’ll just mention the highlights and put more focus on the respective dams (mothers) of the contenders by Into Mischief.

Into Mischief, who scored his signature win in the 2007 CashCall Futurity (G1), descends from the prolific sire line of 1964 Kentucky Derby and Preakness champion Northern Dancer via the branch of Storm Cat. Into Mischief’s sire, $3.6 million-earner Harlan’s Holiday, was seventh as the favorite in the 2002 Derby.

Into Mischief’s mother, Leslie’s Lady, also foaled Hall of Famer Beholder and fellow multi-millionaire Mendelssohn. Leslie’s Lady was honored as Broodmare of the Year in 2016. (More details on Into Mischief can be found here.)

Citizen Bull has famous relatives on his mother’s side too. He is out of the unraced No Joke, a daughter of the influential Distorted Humor.

Here are the pedigree fun facts revolving around Citizen Bull’s maternal half:

Maternal grandfather Distorted Humor sired Funny Cide.

Distorted Humor, by champion and 1988 Kentucky Derby runner-up Forty Niner, got off to a sensational start at stud by siring 2003 Derby and Preakness champion Funny Cide in his very first crop. Although Funny Cide couldn’t sweep the Triple Crown when third in the Belmont (G1), Distorted Humor completed the series as a sire. His son Drosselmeyer landed the 2010 Belmont and later upset the 2011 Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1).

Another son of Distorted Humor, 2005 Travers (G1) star Flower Alley, in turn became the sire of 2012 Derby and Preakness champ I’ll Have Another.

Distorted Humor’s legacy is especially rich through his daughters, who have produced the likes of Hall of Famer Arrogate (more on him below), Hong Kong legend Golden Sixty, multi-millionaires Art Collector and Elate, as well as multiple Grade 1 star Constitution (himself a successful sire).

Citizen Bull is bred on the same cross as Life Is Good and Practical Joke.

It’s worth emphasizing two celebrities bred along the exact same lines as Citizen Bull, being by Into Mischief out of Distorted Humor mares – Life Is Good and Practical Joke.

Life Is Good was the early favorite for the 2021 Kentucky Derby, only to be sidelined by injury after his romp in the San Felipe (G2). Later back to his brilliant best, he garnered such major events as the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1), Pegasus World Cup (G1), Whitney (G1), and Woodward (G1), and retired with more than $4.5 million in the bank.

Practical Joke, a gallant fifth in the 2017 Derby, excelled over shorter distances. Victorious in the Hopeful (G1) and Champagne (G1) at two, he also took the one-turn Dwyer (G3) and H. Allen Jerkens Memorial (G1) at three. Practical Joke’s son Domestic Product turned the same Dwyer/Jerkens double after he was unplaced in the 2024 Kentucky Derby.

Citizen Bull’s “aunt” was a beaten favorite at the 2017 Breeders’ Cup.

No Joke is herself a half-sister to Moonshine Memories, who won her first three career starts including the 2017 Del Mar Debutante (G1) and Chandelier (G1). That made Moonshine Memories the favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1), but she wound up seventh.

Another half-sibling to No Joke, Indian Evening, won two of three starts. A distant third in the 2011 Saratoga Special (G2) behind budding star Union Rags, Indian Evening returned to his home base of Woodbine and captured the Swynford S.

Citizen Bull emulated his ancestor Unbridled’s Song by winning the Juvenile.

No Joke, Indian Evening, and Moonshine Memories are all out of Unenchantedevening, a daughter of 1995 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile star Unbridled’s Song. By 1990 Kentucky Derby champion Unbridled, Unbridled’s Song dominated the Florida Derby (G1) and Wood Memorial (G2) to rank as the favorite in the 1996 Kentucky Derby. Unfortunately, Unbridled’s Song was unable to follow in his sire’s hoofsteps and checked in fifth. But another son of Unbridled, Grindstone, stepped up to claim that Run for the Roses.

Unbridled’s Song became a terrific sire, with his leading progeny including Arrogate, the all-time richest North American Thoroughbred with a bankroll exceeding $17.4 million; fellow U.S. champions Will Take Charge, Midshipman, and Forever Unbridled; Liam’s Map; Unbridled Elaine; and Unrivaled Belle (herself the dam of two-time champion Unique Bella).

Note that No Joke’s pedigree is the mirror image of Arrogate’s. The late Arrogate was a son of Unbridled’s Song and a Distorted Humor mare, No Joke is bred on the reverse cross of Distorted Humor over an Unbridled’s Song mare.

Favorite Trick and Tiz the Law hail from the same female line.

Citizen Bull’s maternal grandmother (second dam), Unenchantedevening, is a half-sister to 1997 Horse of the Year Favorite Trick. Thanks to his perfect 8-for-8 season culminating in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, Favorite Trick achieved the rare feat of being voted Horse of the Year at two.

The only other juvenile to take the Horse of the Year title since 1971, when the Eclipse Awards were instituted as the method of determining championship honors, was the immortal Secretariat. But their trajectories at three were entirely different. Favorite Trick’s sophomore campaign was anticlimactic; his distance limitations soon surfaced, and he finished eighth in the 1998 Kentucky Derby.

A more recent star to emerge from this female line is Tiz the Law, a main player on the pandemic-scrambled Triple Crown trail of 2020. Hero of the Champagne, Florida Derby, Belmont, and Travers, he was runner-up as the favorite in the postponed Kentucky Derby held over Labor Day weekend.

Citizen Bull traces to the important matriarch *Fairy Gold.

If you follow the maternal line back to the turn of the 20th century, you find the mother and daughter tandem of *Fairy Gold and St. Lucre.

*Fairy Gold left an indelible mark on the breed especially through her sons Fair Play (sire of Man o’ War) and Friar Rock, the 1916 Belmont winner. Her daughter St. Lucre became the ancestress of several European standouts, chief among them two-time Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe legend Corrida (1936-37).