Coal Front

by Avalyn Hunter

Four years ago, Coal Front began his stud career as a bargain-basement stallion at Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky. With five stakes winners from his first two crops to race—foals of 2021 and 2022—he now appears poised to seize a top spot in the Louisiana sire ranks.  He will stand his first Louisiana season in 2025 at Jay Adcock’s Red River Farms, and his advertised fee of $2,000 looks like a rare bargain considering his accomplishments as a racehorse and sire.

Coal Front is among the best sons of multiple grade 1 winner Stay Thirsty, a beautifully bred son of 2006 champion three-year-old male Bernardini and the Storm Bird mare Marozia. Also the dam of grade 3 winner Andromeda’s Hero, Marozia is from a female family that includes 2010 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1) winner Tamarkuz and traces back to a full sister to 1946 Triple Crown winner Assault.

Coal Front’s dam, Miner’s Secret, is by another extremely well-bred horse in 2003 Horse of the Year Mineshaft, a son of 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew out of multiple grade 1 winner and 2003 Kentucky Broodmare of the Year Prospectors Delite (by Mr. Prospector). A half sister to multiple grade 3 winner Woodlander (by Forestry), Miner’s Secret has produced three other black-type runners including grade 2-placed stakes winner Conquest Titan (by Birdstone).

Sold for $575,000 through the 2016 Ocala Breeders’ Sales April sale of two-year-olds in training, Coal Front lived up to his price and his pedigree as he was a graded or group stakes winner every year he raced. Named a Thoroughbred Daily News “Rising Star” after breaking his maiden at Keeneland in April of his three-year-old season, Coal Front defeated older horses in his next outing and then annexed the six-and-one-half furlong Amsterdam Stakes (G2) at Saratoga, going gate to wire. Later in the season, he won the six-furlong Gallant Bob Stakes (G3) at Parx Racing, concluding a year in which he won four of five starts.

Unfortunately, Coal Front had to miss most of 2018 due to physical issues, but he came back in time to add Gulfstream Park’s seven-furlong Mr. Prospector Stakes (G3) to his tally. As a five-year-old, he stretched out past sprint distances to win the Godolphin Mile (G2) in Dubai, the mile-and-one-sixteenth Razorback Handicap (G3) at Oaklawn Park, and the Parx Dirt Mile Stakes. He ended his career having won eight of his thirteen starts with earnings of $1,825,280.

Coal Front had just forty-four named two-year-olds of 2023, but twenty-seven of them got to the track and between them amassed $671,566, good enough for twelfth on the national freshman sire list. His ten winners included Xtreme Diva (Silly Little Mama, by Old Topper), who became her sire’s first stakes winner when she annexed the Northern Lights Debutante Stakes at Canterbury Park. As a three-year-old, the Minnesota-bred filly added Oaklawn Park’s Dixie Belle Stakes in open company.

Coal Front’s other stakes winner of 2023 was Good and Stout, a colt that Adcock co-bred with Hume Wornall from the More Than Ready mare Ready Witted. The winner of the Louisiana Champions Day Juvenile Stakes, Good and Stout has since added wins in the Ragin Cajun Stakes (a non-blacktype race) at Evangeline Downs and an allowance race at Delta Downs to his record and has placed in four stakes races in 2023 and 2024.

Two more of Coal Front’s first crop became stakes winners as three-year-olds. One, Haulin Ice (She’s Smoke, by Half Ours), won the Azalea Stakes at Gulfstream Park and ran second in two other stakes events. She most recently added her fifth win from ten starts on December 22, when she won a six-furlong optional claimer at Oaklawn Park. The other, Lil Gin N Class (Ginny’s Classic, by Sky Classic) won the Hoosier Breeders Sophomore Handicap at Horseshoe Indiana. In addition, Coal Front’s 2021 crop includes stakes-placed Crazy Mason (Izshelegal, by Maria’s Mon) and Beachfront Breeze (Quick Breeze, by Ghostzapper), both of whom earned black type as juveniles.

Coal Front’s latest star is two-year-old Coal Battle, bred by Adcock and Wornall from the stakes-placed Midshipman mare Wolfblade. The winner of the Jean Lafitte Stakes at Delta Downs, Coal Front then traveled to Remington Park and ran down front-running Speed King in the last strides to win the listed Remington Springboard Mile Stakes. The colt’s victory—his third from five starts—brought him up to $307,625 in earnings and gave him ten points on the Road to the Kentucky Derby for 2025.

Coal Front has two winners (including Haulin Ice) from two foals out of mares by Half Ours, who (like Midshipman) is a son of Unbridled’s Song, suggesting a possible nick for the stallion. More Than Ready, who sired the second dam of Haulin Ice as well as providing the dam of Good and Stout, also looks like a promising cross for Coal Front. Another sire line showing promise with Coal Front is that of Deputy Minister, whose sons Ghostzapper and Dehere are the broodmare sire of Beachfront Breeze and the second dam’s sire of Xtreme Diva. In addition, Coal Front has four winners from mares whose sires are from the Storm Cat male line.

A well-balanced, muscular, medium-sized horse. Coal Front is an attractive physical specimen. “To see him out in the pasture, you wouldn’t think he was very big, but he’s actually a solid sixteen hands,” says Jay Adcock. “He’s got some muscle to him too, but he doesn’t look like a Quarter Horse. He’s well-made and has a little length to him. The foals I’ve had from him have been nice medium-sized babies with good minds and good substance. They look like him.

“What’s really exciting is that we’re already getting a lot of interest in him. Normally, we might have maybe ten bookings to a stallion by this time of year, and we’ve got a lot more than that already. We are just thrilled with him, and I feel he’s a great find for Louisiana.”

Avalyn Hunter is the author of five books on Thoroughbred pedigrees and history including Dream Derby: The Myth and Legend of Black Gold (2023, University Press of Kentucky) and The Kentucky Oaks: 150 Years of Running for the Lilies (2024, University Press of Kentucky). Her website is www.americanclassicpedigrees.com.