Bloodlines Presented By Walmac Farm: Coal Battle Breeders Wornall, Adcock Were Day-One Believers In Sire Coal Front

Breeders Hume Wornall and Jay Adcock bred Rebel Stakes winner Coal Battle, and Adcock now stands sire Coal Front in Louisiana

• Frank Mitchell Feb 26, 2025, The Paulick Report

With a big move on the turn that propelled him into the lead, Coal Battle (by Coal Front) drew away to win the Grade 2 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park on Feb. 23. Victory in the well-regarded prep has put the progressive colt in the mix for the classics in the coming weeks, and it has brought special attention to his connections, all of whom are serious horsemen and sportsmen.

Owner Robbie Norman set his trainers to finding the best filly and colt at the 2023 Texas Thoroughbred Association yearling sale. Lonnie Briley pounced on a colt by the then-Kentucky-based stallion Coal Front, and Norman bought the big, handsome colt for $70,000, then named him Coal Battle.

Bred in Kentucky by the longtime breeders Hume Wornall and Jay Adcock, Coal Battle is the most prominent of the numerous good racehorses bred by the partners.

Many of them have been bred in Louisiana over the years, but Adcock said, “We partner with several mares and try to keep the numbers about even between us to simplify the bookkeeping. The dam of this colt was one that we acquired off the racetrack, and instead of sending her down here to Louisiana, left her in Kentucky to be covered and foal, then bred back to a Kentucky stallion and sent to Louisiana for the second foal” so that he would be a Louisiana-bred.

As a result, Coal Battle was born and raised at Wornall’s Beech Spring Farm between Lexington and Paris, Ky. The name of the farm is sort of newfangled, Wornall said, “since great-grandaddy Hume Payne changed the name from Cool Spring Farm around 1914.” The property itself has been in family hands since the middle of the 19th century.

“I’m the sixth generation here,” Wornall said, “and after the tobacco price-support buy-out, I decided to switch to a cow-calf operation and raising Thoroughbreds.” Wornall had already been a manager at historic Elmendorf Farm and raced some horses in partnerships with his father.

As part of that changeover to Thoroughbreds, Wornall had become a partner with Adcock, who stands stallions at Red River Farm in Louisiana and foals out a couple hundred mares annually there, for himself and for clients.

Among the stallions at Red River are Louisiana leading sire El Deal (Munnings), Aurelius Maximus (Pioneerof the Nile), Gormley (Malibu Moon), and Coal Front (Stay Thirsty), the sire of Coal Battle.

Grade 1 winner El Deal and the Grade 2 stakes-placed Aurelius Maximus both began their stud careers at Red River, but Gormley and Coal Front started in Kentucky at Spendthrift Farm.

“Hume and I went over to Spendthrift Farm to see champion sprinter Mitole,” Adcock recalled, “and they also showed us Coal Front, who looked like the sort of horse who would be popular here in Louisiana. We liked him enough that we bred to both horses and bought a lifetime breeding right in Coal Front.”

The first year that the partners bred to Coal Front, they sent a mare off the track named Ready Witted (More Than Ready) and got a good first foal later named Good and Stout, who became a first-crop stakes winner at two for the sire.

Wornall said: “Since we had a breeding right in the horse, we sent the new mare off the track to him for the second year. When the colt was born, he was nice, but the Coal Fronts were only selling so-so, and we decided to send him, as a Kentucky-bred, to the sale there in Texas because they’ll give a little more money, and the name of the game is to try to make something.”

“This isn’t a write-off for us; we make a living breeding and raising horses and hopefully selling some of them well,” Wornall concluded.

And one of the principal ways to improve their broodmare band and give themselves the best chance of breeding an athlete was purchasing young prospects off the racetrack by good sires. Adcock said, “I love daughters of Unbridled’s Song, but when it got to the point I couldn't afford them, I switched to finding daughters of his sons, including his champion son Midshipman, who’s the sire of Wolfblade, the dam of Coal Battle.”

Wolfblade foaled the colt at Beech Spring, and “Hume raised him in Kentucky,” Adcock said. “Hume prepped him and sent him to my wife Terri and our son Brandon at the sale in Texas, and that was the first time we saw him. Hume had said he was a nice horse, but Coal Battle was a standout.”

Wornall continued, “I wasn’t going to jinx the horse by telling them he was the best thing on the farm, but he was pretty nice.

“In addition to the breeding right in Coal Front, we had a breeding right in Goldencents and sent the mare to him for her second foal, and that colt sold for $17,000 at the 2024 TTA yearling sale.

“The Goldencents was a Louisiana-bred, then we missed a year, brought her back to Kentucky, and we bred her to Frosted, expecting an April foal. Haven’t decided who’s next,” Wornall said.

For the breeders, Coal Battle’s victory in the Rebel represents an “amazing high. For someone on the smaller scale, it’s danged exciting,” Adcock said. “If he furthers himself, that’s great, but the reality of it is that most of the foals and runners fall into the other half of results. That was a great effort by the colt.

“But don’t get past the fact that we’re lucky. He was in a public auction and could have gone a different direction. A different step along the way, a different schedule, and he might well never have been heard from.

“But he made it happen.” And that makes all the difference.