Originally posted on Bloodhorse:

Tip Top Thomas gamely turned back graded stakes winner Coal Battle to win the $300,000 Grade 3 Indiana Derby July 5 at Horseshoe Indianapolis. He zipped 1 1/16 miles in a track record final time of 1:41.15 on a fast-playing main track. The winner crossed the wire a half-length in front and returned $7.40 for a $2 win wager.

Tip Top Thomas is making up for lost time. Out of action until this spring following a runner-up finish in last fall’s Grade 1 Champagne Stakes, the win improved Tip Top Thomas’s record to 2-for-3 as a 3-year-old.

Tip Top Thomas scored despite battling for the early lead with longshot Master Controller through opening splits of :23.43 and :46.01. Shrugging off the challenger late on the backstretch, he was joined entering the second turn by Coal Battle and favored Big Truzz through six furlongs in 1:09.33, but neither could get past him down the stretch.

“He put up a really good fight. I love when the horses do that,” said winning jockey John Velazquez, who won three stakes races on Saturday’s card at Horseshoe Indianapolis. “They’re running hard and they come to them, and you ask them for more, and they give you more and more.”

Brotha Keny, the longshot in the race at odds of 59-1, rallied to finish third, a half-length in front of Grade 1 Arkansas Derby runner-up Publisher who finished fourth.

Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher trains Tip Top Thomas for owners Jim Bakke and Gerald Isbister. The Indiana Derby winner, who defeated eventual Kentucky Derby presented by Woodford Reserve winner Sovereignty when the two horses made their career debuts together last summer in a maiden race at Saratoga Race Course, is 3-1-0 in five starts with earnings of $385,500.

Pletcher called the Indiana Derby win “a big effort,” but said he would look to point Tip Top Thomas toward “another race similar to today.”