The man behind the method – Adrian Corboy’s role in Closer To Free’s Golden Slipper bid

Buyer’s remorse and seller’s regret may be an inevitable part of racing, but in Adrian Corboy’s world, there is no room for either.

Even if he had the inclination, Corboy is far too busy to dwell on such emotions, educating between 400 and 500 horses each year for Australia’s premier stables.

Corboy has built an outstanding reputation for preparing the next generation of thoroughbreds, shaping them for high-stakes racing careers for trainers such as Ciaron Maher and Danny O’Brien.

Amid the relentless schedule, he still manages the demands of helping raise 10 children, balancing family life with a role in racing that stops for one month in November before the cycle of breaking-in young horses starts all over again.

But this weekend, Corboy will make time to watch the $5 million Golden Slipper in a rare opportunity to take a breather from an all-encompassing schedule.

His attention will be on Closer To Free, a colt he owned and sold before its first start, who goes into the world’s richest juvenile race with a genuine chance as a last-start placegetter in the Blue Diamond Stakes.

Letting a horse go of such substance is part of how Corboy operates from a property near Wangaratta in the northern part of Victoria.

He finds them, educates them, and turns them over in a process that has served him well.

His work is done but Corboy will be cheering hard for Closer To Free because a Golden Slipper win “will be good for business”.

Horse transactions, Corboy explains, run on precision and trust, where timing and judgement matter. The best trainers have been backing him for years.

When Maher decided that expanding into new frontiers could be achieved as few trainers before him had, it was Corboy who laid the foundation for what the stable is today.

“We deal with a lot of yearlings. Helped build the Ciaron Maher team … the Ciaron Maher army,” Corboy told The Straight.

“We’ve been together a long time, and we’ve always had a great relationship. I’m breaking in 250, 300 (yearlings) a year for Ciaron. 

“You’re seeing the best of the best every year.”

Corboy is just as solid with O’Brien to the point where business is done with a handshake.

O’Brien will be chasing Australian racing’s unofficial grand slam with Closer To Free in a Golden Slipper that is as wide open as any in modern times.

He has a Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup on his mantlepiece and Corboy is backing the Victorian to the hilt in his Slipper quest.

“Danny knows his job. And I can tell you now, he wouldn’t be going to Sydney just so he can go and watch the Golden Slipper,” Corboy says.

“He’d go there and get the job done … he’s going up there to try and win a Golden Slipper. Let’s hope it happens (because it would be) very good for business.”

Watching Closer To Free in the Golden Slipper, Corboy admits, will be a moment of observation mixed with validation amid more buying at this year’s sales with the aim of finding his next trade.

Closer To Free’s sale was settled in the washbay area after the colt contested a Caulfield barrier trial in January.

The informal setting matched a casual round of negotiations on behalf of O’Brien’s long-term client Sean Buckley.

“Danny said to me that day, ‘what are you doing with that horse’? I said, ‘well, you’re either buying him or training him’,” Corboy recalled.

“I shook his hand. Straight out, gentlemen’s agreement. 

“If you say you’re going to do something, you do it. You don’t go back down there. 

“The phone always rang. Everyone wanted the horse, but they didn’t have the money at the time. Danny was the only one with the balls big enough to do the job.”

A son of Street Boss, Closer To Free represents the payoff of a system built on discipline, judgment, and attention to detail, a model that Corboy has honed over decades while nurturing horses and family in parallel.

He cost $60,000 as an Inglis Classic Yearling Sale graduate and instantly won Corboy over with a calm intelligence who responded instantly to his methods.

Corboy, who trains a handful of horses under his own name, knew he was on a winner of some sort long before the public set eyes on the colt in early-season barrier trials.

He says that Closer To Free winning at his first start – a week after changing hands – underscored the integrity of his system.

It also put his name up in lights for another reason other than winning the gruelling Mongol Derby alongside Annabel Archibald in 2018.

“There aren’t many trainers that do that … run a horse seven days after getting it from another stable,” Corboy said. “Never even put a saddle on it or saw it before. 

“Good luck to him and good luck to us.

“Everyone likes a good product and I like to think we can develop the right type of horse people want to buy.”

In Corboy’s universe, there is no room for regret. 

It would stifle a constant pursuit of excellence as Closer To Free stands on the verge of becoming the clearest proof yet that Corboy’s methodology continues to stand up despite an ever-changing racing landscape.