Pedigree Profile: Coal Battle
The Remington Springboard Mile winner is a product of linebreeding to Seattle Slew
Coal Battle won his second consecutive stakes race in five lifetime starts Friday evening, closing from over five lengths back to prevail by half a length over favored Speed King in the Remington Springboard Mile, earning himself ten Kentucky Derby qualifying points in the process. According to trainer Lonnie Briley, Coal Battle will be pointed to the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park for his next start.
Coal Battle is a son of multiple graded stakes winner Coal Front, who stood his first five seasons at stud at Spendthrift Farm but has been relocated to Red River Farm in Louisiana for the 2025 season. In 2023, Coal Front got ten winners in 27 starters from his first crop of foals, including two stakes winners and three stakes placed runners - a very solid 11.1% black type runners. His progeny earnings of $671,566 placed him 12th on the leading sires list. He is currently the 12th ranked second crop sire and has continued to get very respectable numbers, with seven black type runners in 57 starters - that rate of 12.3% black type horses worse than only leading second-crop sire Omaha Beach and Divisidero, who has four black type runners in 25 starters, among the top 15 second-crop stallions of 2024. With four (7%) black type winners, he is again only behind Omaha Beach (7.1%) and Divisidero (8%) among the top 15 second-crop sires. To date, Coal Front has gotten five stakes winners in 59 starters (8.5%).
Coal Battle is the first foal to race out of his dam, the stakes-placed Midshipman mare Wolfblade. Wolfblade was out of the multiple stakes placed Latent Heat mare Venice Queen, who also produced the stakes placed runner Campania by Commissioner. Venice Queen is a full sister to the multiple stakes winner Softly Lit and a half-sister to graded stakes winner Easy Time, by Not This Time.
There is a little bit of interesting linebreeding going on in this pedigree. Both Coal Front and Wolfblade carry three crosses of the great Seattle Slew - Coal Front is inbred 3x3 to that stallion’s legendary son A.P. Indy, and his third dam is also a daughter of Seattle Slew. Wolfblade, meanwhile, carries a cross of Seattle Slew in the fourth generation on her sire’s side via Avenue of Flags, the damsire of Midshipman, and two crosses of Seattle Slew in the fifth generation on her dam’s side, via Capote and Seaside Attraction, the dam of her second damsire Cape Town. Wolfblade also carries three daughters of Caro and two of Mr. Prospector within five generations. The latter appears twice in the fourth generation on the bottom half of Coal Front’s pedigree as well.
There is also some repetition of female families here, as Coal Front’s grandsire Bernardini is from the same female family 4m as Midshipman’s sire Unbridled’s Song. The cross of Bernardini over Unbridled’s Song has produced ten stakes winners in 179 starters (5.6%), an improvement on the 4.4% stakes winners from all starters carrying Bernardini in the top half of the pedigree. In addition to Coal Battle on the cross, Coal Front has stakes winner Haulin Ice out of a mare by Unbridled’s Song’s Half Ours.
Family 4m shares a mitochondrial haplotype with female family 13c, shared by both Seattle Slew and Mr. Prospector, Stay Thirsty’s family 4c, and with this colt’s female family 4r. Coal Battle’s second damsire, Latent Heat, is also a member of the same genetic family as a member of Lowe family 11g.
The fact that Coal Battle has already won around two turns bodes well for his stamina, although his ability to go the classic mile and a quarter distance is an interesting one. Coal Front never raced beyond a mile and an eighth, finishing third in the G3 Monmouth Cup by 12 lengths in his only attempt at that distance, but his sire was a winner of the Travers Stakes and ran second in the Belmont Stakes, and he was out of a mare by Mineshaft, who won the Jockey Club Gold Cup at a mile and a quarter. There’s some reason, thus, to believe that Coal Front, despite being a brilliant miler himself, could pass on a bit of stamina.
Wolfblade, on the other hand, raced exclusively at sprint distances, with wins at 4 1/2 and 5 furlongs in her career, although she earned black type in the seven furlong West Virginia Triple Crown Nutrition Breeders' Classic Stakes, a two-turn race at Charles Town. Her sire, Midshipman, was a winner at up to 8 1/2 furlongs but never raced at longer distances and tends to sire more sprinters and milers. Despite his pedigree not necessarily crying out for a mile and a quarter, I would not be shocked if Coal Battle could get the distance, and I expect him to continue to be effective at around a mile. It will be very exciting to see how this relatively modestly-bred colt performs as things heat up on the Kentucky Derby trail.