Share Of National Debt Sold

"The bottom line is it came down to where we wanted the horse to be and our intent was never really to sell the horse but the right deal with the right partner came up."

As reported earlier today, Trot Insider has learned that an interest in undefeated three-year-old pacer National Debt has been sold.

According to Blair Corbeil, who co-owns the son of Allamerican Native with his wife Erna and the colt's developer Kelly Hoerdt, one-third of National Debt has been purchased by New York's Jerry Silva for an undisclosed sum but Corbeil did say that it was a "very fair deal for all involved."

"Jerry's a first-class guy and there's definitely a comfort level there. The biggest thing for us was the ability to leave the horse with Ron Coyne," said Corbeil. "We've got every confidence in the world in his abilities and his program. We love the way he takes care of horses. He's got the same philosophy that we do."

National Debt went four-for-four as a freshman in 2013, one of the standout horses in Hoerdt's season that lofted him to his first O'Brien Award of Horsemanship.

"Racing him last year, we recognized fairly early on that he seemed like a pretty special horse. When we were campaigning him last year in Alberta, we heard a lot of comments that this is one of the nicest horses they've ever seen out here -- which is a pretty good comment considering American Ideal was out here and On The Road Again. To even think that this horse is mentioned in the same breath as those horses is pretty flattering."

The colt was then sent to New Jersey and into the care of trainer Ron Coyne Jr., and made his U.S. and seasonal debut impressively by winning his division of the Buddy Gilmour Memorial Series in 1:50.3.

"In our eyes, and especially Kelly's, we knew that mile was in him. To do it that quick, that early...and it sounds ridiculous to say but it was actually a fairly easy trip for him."

Corbeil notes that the offers started coming in after Saturday's mile.

"We did have three really serious offers, one was from a really good owner and it was a great offer," said Corbeil. "We really weren't planning on selling the horse but we wound up selling a third of him."

The initial deal for National Debt was rejected because it was for a bigger chunk of the horse than the owners wanted to sell, and it required moving the horse to another trainer.

"Our preference was to sell -- if we did sell -- less than half of the horse, so we did a deal for a third of the horse and that enabled us to keep the horse with the current trainer, who we're very comfortable with."

Corbeil is familiar with Silva as the two are partners on three-year-old pacing filly Rockingcam Park and considers him a "great partner" to have on National Debt. That filly is also with trainer Ron Coyne, and Corbeil notes that keeping the horse in Coyne's care was essential to the deal.

With the second leg of the Gilmour coming up on Saturday, and National Debt not entered, many were wondering if there was an issue with the colt. Corbeil noted that he came out of the race great and had no physical issues keeping him out the entry box for the second leg of the Gilmour.

"The horse came out of his last start perfectly fine. The reasoning for leaving him out this week was, with the cold weather, we shipped him East later than we wanted to. We couldn't get him shipped out East around Christmas and into early January. Then when he got there, the weather out East hasn't been the greatest either.

"The horse really wasn't getting trained as much as we would have liked. We actually considered not starting him in the first leg or even skipping the whole stake. He'd only trained in 2:00 three or four times before that."

That delayed schedule prompted a pair of easy qualifiers in the 1:57 range, with the National Debt group thinking the horse could bounce from that to a mile in the 1:52 or 1:53 range.

"Then he goes out and blows off a mile like that and comes off the track barely blowing. It was just like a training trip, having fun out there for him."

Corbeil wasn't at The Meadowlands for the race, and didn't see it live either.

"I was flying back from Mexico. When I landed I turned my phone on and it lit up like a Christmas tree. I started looking at texts and it was amazing...out of all the texts I got no one said the horse won," laughed Corbeil. They just said 'great race', 'wow'...a bunch of comments like that. So right away I phoned Kelly and said 'what the hell's going on?' and he said 'watch the replay and phone me'."

The mile also impressed the colt's driver, Tim Tetrick, who has sat behind some impressive pacers in his own right.

"Tim told us there was lots left in the tank, he was pretty happy with him, obviously. And Tim did a great job for us in the qualifiers and did a great job driving him."

Corbeil noted that the team behind National Debt is completely behind the plan and schedule that had been previously mapped out, which includes the Somebeachsomewhere and the North America Cup as well as the major races state-side.

"We've got his year planned out. We wanted to start him early just to get him racing a bit. Up until that start he'd only had four lifetime starts ...he's obviously fairly green.

"We're not looking at racing him a whole lot too early. We want to get him some training and get him in with some decent competition, and there's a lot of good horses in these late closers. We're looking to get maybe four or five starts in there before we start catching the really tough ones in the big races. "

While optimism is high, Corbeil clearly is approaching this voyage with a level head the right frame of mind.

"We're hoping that this is a nice, long, fun ride for us. That's one of the nicest things about Standardbred racing...it's there for everybody. It's not just there for the people with the deep pockets and it's nice that the small guys can have success as much as the larger barns."

Corbeil credits his long partnership with Hoerdt and "learning the business the right way" for outlook on racing, noting that he prefers partners on his horses because it's more fun to share those victories with other people than by yourself.