Magic ride for Coal Battle’s camp continues in Indiana Derby at Horseshoe Indianapolis

Coal Battle has fueled dreams of a lifetime for those connected to the 7-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s $300,000 Grade 3 Indiana Derby at Horseshoe Indianapolis.

“All these races he’s taken us to, with a stable like ours, we’re taking them as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” owner Robbie Norman said by phone from Thomasville, Ala., adding of his family, “We are coming up. We’re in the grocery business, and the Fourth of July is about the busiest holiday of the year. But I told them I’m leaving out on the third and heading toward Indiana.”

Trainer Lonnie Briley, who grew up in Louisiana’s Cajun region and is stabled at Copper Crowne training center in Opelousas, was at the 2023 Texas yearling sale looking for a horse for Norman that could potentially run on the grass the next year at Kentucky Downs. He found one with a $70,000 price tag in Coal Battle, who indeed finished fourth in a $1 million stakes last year at Kentucky Downs after winning his debut at Evangeline Downs.

But Briley and Norman also ended up with a Kentucky Derby contender, a Grade 2 winner and earner (so far) of more than $1.2 million. If the dream was dinked in an 11th-place Kentucky Derby finish, the magical ride hasn’t been diminished. 

“We’re still on it,” said Bethany Taylor, Briley’s assistant trainer overseeing the stable’s horses at Churchill Downs. “It’s tough to judge a horse’s talent by the Derby. We ran with 19 horses. Half the field can say they didn’t get the trip they wanted. You can’t judge anything off of that. Every race up to the Derby, he didn’t disappoint us. It’s still a fun ride, and we’re hoping for good things in the Indiana Derby.”

Norman originally wanted a horse to run in Louisiana-bred races at that Texas sale two years ago, but Briley fancied the Kentucky-bred Coal Battle.

“It was the end of the sale, and I hated to have Lonnie go over there and not get the horse he loved,” said Norman, who owns all or part of seven grocery stores in eastern Alabama. “We thought $40,000 tops. But once it got a little over $40,000, you could tell it was me and somebody else bidding. I just said, ‘I’m going to get this horse, and hopefully he’ll be great for us.’ We never imagined what we were buying that day.”

Coal Battle (main photo, left) will break from post 3 in the field of nine 3-year-olds running 1 1/16 miles. Corey Lanerie — who recently passed Calvin Borel as Churchill Downs’ second-winningest jockey behind the untouchable Pat Day — has the mount.

“This guy just showed potential and more and more and more,” Briley, who is back in Louisiana, said before the Kentucky Derby. “… You can look, look and look (at the sales), but they’re going to have to show you they’re that kind of horse. You can pick the best-bred horses and everything else. But they’ve got to have that pump, that heart, and want to do it. This guy, you can work him, and he won’t even wet his lips.”

Coal Battle is a son of the multiple graded-stakes winner Coal Front, who was relocated this year from Kentucky to Louisiana, where his stud fee was $2,000. The relative rags-to-riches background made Coal Battle one of the feel-good stories of the May 3 Kentucky Derby.

The colt came into Churchill Downs off a third-place finish in the Arkansas Derby (G1) following a four-stakes win streak capped by Oaklawn Park’s Grade 2 $1 million Rebel Stakes. It was Briley’s first graded-stakes victory.

Falling five weeks after the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs’ Matt Winn Stakes (G3) had only four horses, but they were four good ones. Coal Battle finished third behind a pair of Grade 1 winners in a race that didn’t set up for anyone other than victorious front-runner East Avenue.

Coal Battle finished 1 1/4 lengths behind East Avenue, only a half-length behind runner-up Burnham Square, winner of Keeneland’s Grade 1 Toyota Blue Grass.

“It was super tough,” Taylor said. “There wasn’t quite enough pace in there for us, so he didn’t quite show the closing kick he normally does. We all got real excited between the eighth and sixteenth pole when he got heads-up with everybody. We were hoping he’d go on by him. But the horses on the lead had just enough in the tank to pull away from him. We’re proud of him.”

After five wins and two thirds in 10 lifetime starts and a bankroll of $1,228,875 that easily tops the Indiana Derby, Taylor wants Coal Battle to have continued success, more for the horse than anything.

“He definitely doesn’t owe anybody anything,” said Taylor, a former jockey. “He keeps performing, so we keep asking. We’re just going along for the ride, building his resume a little bit and having fun with him.”

The Indiana Derby is a terrific betting race. Texas Derby winner Instant Replay is the 4-1 second choice, with Grade 1-placed Big Truzz 9-2 and Arkansas Derby runner-up Publisher 5-1. Chunk of Gold, second in the Louisiana Derby and Ohio Derby, and New York allowance winner Tip Top Thomas are 6-1 in the morning line.

“That’s a race we’d really enjoy winning,” Norman said (photo, with Coal Battle).

If Coal Battle goes off the post-time favorite, it will be only the second time in his career. The other was Delta Downs’ $100,000 Jean Lafitte that kicked off his win streak.

“He’s never really gotten to be the favorite in any of those races, and he’s still performed,” Taylor said. “At the end of the day when the odds come out, it’s not going to affect how we feel about him.”

Taylor, who also is Coal Battle’s exercise rider, said they will ship to Horseshoe Indianapolis on Wednesday after training at Churchill Downs. She let the colt pick up the pace through the stretch Tuesday.

“I like the way he came off the track,” she said. “He’s out here being himself, trying to bite everybody, bouncing around the shed row. I’m excited about that. We’ll get checks, hit the board going a mile and an eighth. But I think a mile, a mile and a sixteenth, that’s his sweet spot. That closing kick he’s got, if he’s going a shorter distance, he’s got a solid five-sixteenths; some days if the pace sets up right, he can close from three-eighths. When he gets to run his race and show that kick, it’s explosive. He actually drops and takes off.”

Horseshoe Indy will be Coal Battle’s eighth track in 11 career starts.

“He’s a classy dude,” Taylor said. “He knows the drill when he gets on the trailer.”

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