"If there was more on the page, I don't know what he would have sold for," said Corey Callahan, whose namesake Captain Corey debuted with a sensational performance at The Meadows on July 20, opening eyes and perhaps resetting the values people look for when inspecting a yearling. Callahan has a good deal to do with the very fact that Carter Duer decided to breed his mare to a stallion that many had either avoided or found too difficult to go to in the years prior. Googoo Gaagaa was an incredibly talented sophomore in 2012 and Corey Callahan was his regular driver. His own rise to trotting fame had to be an affront to many as his sire Cams Rocket was in fact a pacer, though his dam’s side had trotting blood. To some, pacers and trotters shouldn't be mixed in races or in the breeding shed, but that’s kind of irrelevant at this moment, as it was in 2012. Googoo Gaagaa was simply a great trotter that met and defeated the best of his generation. "I remember when we took him to the Meadowlands and he raced in the Simpson," said Callahan. "I was in a field that Noel Daley had a few horses that he was pointing towards the Hambletonian. After the race he asked me if that horse was eligible to the Hambo and was relieved when I told him no," said Callahan. While not Hambletonian eligible, Googoo Gaagaa clearly made his mark with a pair of miles on consecutive weeks at Pocono where he captured the Beal elimination in a track record 1:51 3/5 mile and then shattered that mark a week later with an eye-popping 1:50 4/5 mile. "He was just phenomenal," said Callahan, recalling those epic performances and track records that lasted. Whatever Googoo Gaagaa did on the racetrack would not translate into a lucrative stallion deal at the time. Owner and trainer Richard Hans kept the horse in Maryland where he was bred and raised. There was no real effort to make him into a commercial stallion and from limited numbers he had just 31 registered foals in his first three seasons at stud. Callahan was helpful in convincing owner Richard Hans to move the horse to Pennsylvania to stand in 2018, with the explicit idea of being eligible to race in both overnights and on the lucrative Sire Stakes program. Still, Googoo Gaagaa struggled to gain wide acceptance at the time. "I'm good friends with John Duer," said Callahan. "I kept telling his dad (Carter) that he had to find a mare he could breed to Googoo Gaagaa." Callahan's persistence paid off and Duer sent one mare, albeit a daughter of Angus Hall that made her first career start at age 5 and made but three starts with $384 in lifetime earnings. Callahan saw the foal from time to time and last fall in Lexington when Captain Corey was up for auction, he took a closer look. "He was just a magnificent-looking horse," Callahan said, recalling an incredible presence. "They were definitely expecting six figures. It would have been a lot more if there was something on the page." Therein lies the most fascinating part of the breeding and buying business in trotting world - wild. There are some that pore through the yearling catalog and simply won't look at a horse with a pedigree like Captain Corey's. You need to go back five or six generations to find some sleepers, which in some ways Captain Corey's pedigree reminds me faintly of Nuncio's. Still, you have to have a tremendous belief in bloodlines to trust a dormant family will reawaken. Needless to say it's quite possible that Googoo Gaagaa just didn’t have many mares as highly qualified as Luv U All in his first three years as a stallion and thus had no chance to produce a physical specimen with extreme potential. Ake Svanstedt's owners paid $150,000 for Captain Corey, who according to Callahan was the second name choice after Captain Callahan was refused. The purchase price may have been a result of what Captain Corey looked like while at the same time an indication that there were many people in Sweden that had already noticed what Googoo Gaagaa was capable of. While Googoo Gaagaa was sold and exported to Sweden late last year, breeders in Europe had been utilizing the stallion for years through shipped semen. "He's done great in Europe," said Callahan. "I think a lot of breeders over there really believe in the horse." While one race does not determine a racing career, it was rather clear well before the race that Captain Corey has the look of a champion on the racetrack. He appeared more of an aged horse that Svanstedt was able to use with ease and let him go at his own speed. Captain Corey trotted a final half of 55 4/5 in a Pennsylvania Sire Stakes division on a perfect day at The Meadows, stopping the clock in 1:54 1/5, a track and stakes record, While many in North America have seen Svanstedt get a horse ready for a debut in the past, we’ve never seen him show up with a freshman with such advanced skills. It is hard to put an actual value on race times these days. It is more important to evaluate competition. In the case of Captain Corey's rivals on Monday, there was already a stakes winner in Bidensky, who tried in vain to attack in the third quarter and eventually lost his footing. Tart Tongue, who was stakes-placed for the Bongiornos, couldn't match strides when it counted. Second-place finisher Plumville Prince looks like a nice horse, but he crossed the wire more than four lengths behind Captain Corey. SRF Stable, Knuttson Trotting Inc. and Midnight Sun Partners Inc. share ownership in Captain Corey, a colt that didn't require breaking the bank to acquire and right now, may be the bargain purchase of the 2019 auctions.