John Clay: Coal Battle is one of the 2025 Kentucky Derby's best underdog stories

John Clay, Lexington Herald-Leader on May 1, 2025

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LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Lonnie Briley had been a thoroughbred trainer for over three decades before he finally entered a horse in a graded stakes race.

Three months later, the 72-year-old Louisianan is in his first Kentucky Derby.

“There’s a lot of people from Louisiana that’s calling and leaving text messages and things of that nature. They’re pretty excited,” said Briley, who added he never expected to be in the Kentucky Derby.

And yet here he is with Coal Battle, one of the Kentucky Derby 151’s best underdog stories, the colt having won three consecutive Kentucky Derby prep races, including the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn on Feb. 23 — Briley’s first graded stakes — before the son of Coal Front finished third in the Grade 1 Arkansas Derby on March 29 at Oaklawn.

“My rider kind of pulled the trigger a little too soon at the half-mile pole instead of waiting,” Briley said of the Arkansas Derby. “He got a little heavy and ran third, he still ran good. We were real proud of him.”

With good reason. Co-bred by Hume Wornall of Paris and Jay Adcock of Coushatta, Louisiana, Coal Battle sold for $70,000 at the 2023 Texas Thoroughbred Association Yearling Sales to Briley on behalf of owner Robbie Norman.

“He was always a pretty genuine foal, and he always just kind of stood out,” said Wornall, whose Beech Spring Farm in Bourbon County is where Coal Battle was born and raised. “He would just always come to you, and if the others took off, he would cut a rug and catch up and be on top right before you knew it.”

“I probably looked at about 20 horses,” Briley said of the Texas sale. “I kept looking him over and then I just kept going back to Coal Battle and I figured he was the one I wanted. He’s a nice colt, a good looking colt, a pretty head on him and a good eye, good long neck, good hip, shoulder, a good walk on him. All the tools to be a racehorse.”

Briley knows a thing or two about the anatomy of a horse. He started out working in the Louisiana oil fields, working with horses on the side, until Eclipse Award-winning owner John Franks hired Briley to be his farm manager. Briley began training full time in 1991.

Only once (2021) had Briley’s horses earned over $600,000 until Coal Battle ($1.18 million in earnings) came along. The colt won his debut at Evangeline Downs last July before Briley took him to Kentucky Downs last September to run on the turf. A fourth-place finish there was followed by a seventh-place finish in an allowance race at Keeneland in October.

It wasn’t until Briley took the colt to Louisiana that Coal Battle found his form. He won the Jean Lafitte Stakes at Delta Downs on Nov. 28. Next came a victory in the Remington Springboard Mile Stakes at Remington Park in Oklahoma on Dec. 13 for his first Derby qualifying points. Coal Battle won the Smarty Jones Stakes on Jan. 4 at Oaklawn, followed by the Rebel Stakes victory at 12-1 in which he bested fellow Kentucky Derby entrants Sandman (third), Publisher (fourth) and Tiztastic (fifth).

Sandman turned the tables in the Arkansas Derby, with Publisher running second. “He was a little fresh that day,” Briley said of Coal Battle.

Briley isn’t expecting any problems at Churchill Downs on Saturday.

“The weather’s real nice and he’s taken to the track real nice and been training hard,” said Briley, whose jockey, Juan Vargas, will be riding in his first Derby. “He’s never been a big work horse, but his works have improved every time he’s worked over here. And it seems like he’s matured a lot more since the Arkansas Derby.”

Meanwhile, back in Paris, the town is thrilled with Coal Battle’s success, Beech Spring Farm having been in the Wornall family for six generations.

“It’s a very humbling experience, I can assure you that,” said Wornall, who will be at Churchill Downs on Saturday. “Everybody said, ‘Are you going to go?’ and I said the dam of Coal Battle (Wolfblade) is due to foal and I’m not going unless she has foaled. Well, she foaled Tuesday night. So I’m good to go.”

If Coal Battle finishes first on Saturday, Briley would tie Frank Childs (72 with Tomy Lee in 1958) as the third-oldest trainer to win the race, behind Art Sherman (77 with California Chrome in 2024) and Charlie Whittingham (76 with Sunday Silence in 1989).

But can a $70,000 yearling, sold in Texas, with a first-time trainer and jockey, win the Kentucky Derby?

“Today, the way horses are bred, I think anybody can come up with a runner,” Briley said.

But not anybody can come up with a runner in the Kentucky Derby.