Everything lined up for Coal Battle in the Kentucky Derby until Journalism wrote the wrong ending but owner considers Preakness run

 

 

 

By JIMMY WIGFIELD

Coal Battle did precisely what he was supposed to do until absorbing an unexpected jolt from heavily favored Journalism in the backstretch of Saturday’s 151^st Kentucky Derby but the colt with Clarke County ties may race in the Preakness.

Coal Battle surged cleanly out of the starting gate from the 16^th post and jockey Juan Vargas promptly nudged him into the middle of the muddy track, stalked the leaders and even had the thoroughbred ahead of Journalism halfway through the race. But when Journalism drew even on the outside, the two horses slammed into each other — trainer Lonnie Briley described it as a “broadside” — and Coal Battle faded while Journalism charged down the stretch only to lose by a length in an upset to Sovereignty.

Coal Battle, owned by Thomasville grocery store owner Robbie Norman, finished 11^th in the 19-horse field. Sovereignty — who started in the 18th post, two slots wider than Coal Battle — won in 2:02.31 in the 1¼-mile Derby in front of 147,000 fans at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

Coal Battle, who went off at 26-1 odds despite being the only five-time winner in the Derby field, had to have a shoe replaced in the paddock shortly before the race began but otherwise had no issues after being loaded into the gate and breaking away unperturbed.

“He was his normal self,” Briley said. “He felt good.”

Coal Battle was comfortable with the massive crowd and had no problem on the sloppy track with Vargas in the saddle for his first Kentucky Derby.

“The mud don’t bother this horse,” said Briley, who was also in his first Kentucky Derby. “This horse will run on a gravel road.”

But Coal Battle was blocked from the rail early and later in the race was knocked off his stride by the bigger, faster Journalism and could not recover.

“He always breaks the gates real sharp,” Briley said. “Vargas was trying to get him closer to the rail and he couldn’t because another horse hung on the side of him, so it kind of messed him up. Then going down the stretch, when he wanted to move him, the favorite horse kind of broadsided him and knocked the wind out of him. It kind of killed us right there. It threw a piece of wood in the fire. He’s a lot bigger horse. Coal Battle’s not a big horse.

“He just didn’t have a clean trip. I think it would have been a lot different — I’m not saying he would have won it — but I think he would have been in the top five if he had got a good, clean trip.”

Norman said tangling with Journalism affected Coal Battle mentally.

“I’ve seen it so many times with so many other horses,” Norman said. “If he got bumped or knocked there, sometimes it breaks their heart a little bit when they get passed like that. I knew that was the time that it wasn’t going to quite go our way. But we’re still very happy with the way he ran.”

Norman said the Coal Battle team would have preferred a dry track but he didn’t use the slippery surface as an excuse.

“I don’t think it affected him because he has won two races over the mud,” Norman said. “We actually thought the mud would probably help him. We’d have liked a dry track but there is no excuse on the muddy track. We were prepared to run on it.”

Briley said Vargas was waiting to make his move before the encounter with Journalism.

“Twice, Coal Battle grabbed the bit to go and Vargas kind of held him back, trying to wait to make that one run,” Briley said.

Coal Battle also tends to protect himself, Briley said.

“I can tell my rider to go 48½ (seconds over a half mile) and he might go 49 and come back bucking and kicking,” Briley said. “He kind of takes care of himself.”

But Coal Battle’s Triple Crown career might not be over, as Norman said he will consider running his horse in the Preakness on May 17.

“You want to make sure he came out of the race good because it’s in two weeks,” Norman said. “Then, I would want to look at the other horses that are pointing to the Preakness and which ones in this race might be pointing to the Preakness. We’d have to determine if we really thought he had a chance to finish top three in the Preakness. Right now, it’s probably 20 percent that we would go that direction.”

Briley said Coal Battle was frisky on Sunday morning and showing no ill effects from the Derby.

“He came out of the race real good,” Briley said. “He was bucking and kicking this morning and feeling good.”

Briley said Coal Battle could run in the Preakness or the $400,000 Matt Winn stakes race on June 8 at Churchill Downs. Unless he runs in the Preakness, Coal Battle will remain in Louisville until late June. Norman has four horses there, with two scheduled to run in the next two weeks, and he plans to race Coal Battle as a 4-year-old.

“Absolutely,” Norman said. “We think he’ll be a great mile horse. And then during the summer, you can give him a little bit of a break and you have races like the Iowa Derby, the Ohio Derby, the Indiana Derby, the Super Derby and then, when we won the Springboard Mile, we get free entry into the Oklahoma Derby at the end of September. There’s lots of great races left out there for him. And this good crop that he raced against today, they’ll spread out, so it should be some races that he could win or should win. It’s going to be a fun summer.”

While the support from Clarke County and his hometown of Ramer was uplifting, Norman said the drive back to Thomasville would be somber.

“I joked with Lonnie that if you win, the 10-hour drive feels like you get home in 10 minutes,” Norman said. “Now it will seem like 24. But I think the little coffee shop in Grove Hill had a Coal Battle cookie and a Coal Battle coffee and some Derby treats. Even people in Ramer saw it. I got so many texts, it was blowing up my phone like the Fourth of July. The day was wonderful. Most of my family was here. My 82-year-old uncle was here. Getting everybody here and organized and where they needed to be really tied up a lot of my day, so I didn’t have too much time to worry about the race. Everybody had a wonderful time and the Derby is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”