In the mid-1990s, when he was working as a farm manager for owner/breeder John Franks, Lonnie Briley took a shining to a weanling colt by the Grade 1 winner Lively One.
Briley, apparently, was in the minority of the group evaluating the horse who eventually became Answer Lively.
“We’d grade the babies and sell some and keep the ones we wanted,” Briley recalled. “Answer Lively, they had him on the sell list. I said, ‘Oh, no no.’ They said [the dam Twosies Answer] never produced anything. I said, ‘She did this year.’ . . . I more or less raised him and we sent him to Bobby Barnett and he did good with him.”
In 1998, Answer Lively won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile and the following year made it to the Kentucky Derby, where he finished 10th behind Charismatic.
While Briley did not attend the Derby that year, it was as close as he came – and figured to ever come – to being associated with the world’s most famous horse race.
Until now.
Briley, 72, is the trainer of Coal Battle, who after victories in the Springboard Mile at Remington Park in December and the Smarty Jones at Oaklawn Park in January, has the trainer on the cusp of having his own Kentucky Derby contender. Coal Battle runs in Sunday’s Grade 2, $1.25 million Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn. The 1 1/16-mile Rebel offers its top five finishers points (50-25-15-10-5) toward the May 3 Kentucky Derby.
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“In all honesty, I never even thought about it because I didn’t think I’d have that type of horse,” said Briley, who according to Equibase, has 336 wins since 1991. “Then this little horse come around and every time I run him it seems like he improves and gets better and better and now it’s almost a reality.”
Briley has only started two horses in graded events – Classy Bird, sixth in the 2016 Super Derby, and Paynt Battle, ninth in the 2019 Super Derby. Like Coal Battle, those horses were owned by Robbie Norman, for whom Briley trains privately.
When Briley was looking at horses at the Texas Thoroughbred Association sale in 2023 he narrowed his list down to three and ultimately landed on Coal Battle, a son of Coal Front. Norman purchased him for $70,000.
Though Briley thought Coal Battle would excel on turf – he believes with a better trip Coal Battle would have won the $1 million Juvenile Turf Mile at Kentucky Downs last September – the horse is 4 for 4 on dirt, including a trio of stakes wins.
Following a fifth in a turf allowance at Keeneland in October, Briley moved Coal Battle back to the dirt in the Jean Laffite at Evangeline Downs, a race Briley had won two years earlier with a maiden. Checked into the first turn, Coal Battle made a strong middle move before drifting out significantly in the stretch. Jockey Jorge Vargas straightened Coal Battle out in time and he won by 2 1/2 lengths.
Coal Battle then won the Springboard Mile at Remington, a race in which he again drifted some but got up in time to beat Speed King, who came back to win the Grade 3 Southwest. Coal Battle came back to win the Smarty Jones, this time from a forward position where he dueled at different points in the race with Kale’s Angel and Mo Quality but went on to win by four.
“When we went to the Smarty Jones, that was the first time he ran without acting like a monkey,” Briley said. “The fractions were slow, and he went to the front. He had his head bowed. Mo Quality and the other horse, they both challenged him, and they backed up. The rider told me he just took the bit and went on about his business. He took off running before [he] even asked him.”
Briley skipped the Southwest in January to focus on the Rebel and then, hopefully, the Arkansas Derby, on March 29.
The Rebel, moved to Sunday from Saturday due to weather, has drawn a deep field that includes California shippers Madaket Road and Bullard; the top three finishers from the Southwest – Speed King, Sandman, and Tiztastic; and recent winners Admiral Dennis, Hypnus, Dreaminblue, and Smoken Wicked.
Briley just wants to see Coal Battle, who drew the rail, get the chance to run his race.
“I want him to come from off the pace,” Briley said. “He’ll break pretty sharp, he always does, and then you’ll have to grab him. I’m sure they’ll go 46 and change, low 47, they’ll be hummin’ pretty good. I hope it plays out for him so he can make his run.”
If he does, Coal Battle and Briley will likely be making a run for the roses in May.
◗ First Resort, winner of the Kentucky Jockey Club last November, makes his 3-year-old debut in Saturday’s John Battaglia Memorial at Turfway Park. The 1 1/16-mile race on Tapeta offers its top five finishers points (20-10-6-4-2) toward the Kentucky Derby.
The Battaglia drew 14 but is limited to 12 starters.
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