Corrales cautious about running Bodhisattva in Preakness

Jose Corrales won his biggest race as a trainer last week when Bodhisattva pulled away in the stretch of the $100,000 Federico Tesio Stakes at Pimlico.

The Tesio is the final stakes for 3-year-olds in Maryland prior to the Preakness, but Corrales, who also owns Bodhisattva, is a realist, and he will only run there if he thinks the horse belongs.

“I don’t want to be a dreamer,” Corrales said Wednesday. “I want to run my horses where I think I can be in the first three. To run just to run means nothing to me. I want to run and make money.”

Corrales, a 55-year-old native of Panama, is a former rider. He has seen good times and bad times since coming to the United States in 1976. Along the way, several individuals have helped him, including, in chronological order, Wesley Ward, Burton Sipp, and Andy and Frank Stronach.

In 1984, Corrales was working for Bobby DeBonis in New York. He wasn’t riding much and, as always, was having weight problems. He and Ward worked a few horses together, and Ward said he knew a track where Corrales might succeed.

“The next day, Wesley gave me a plane ticket and said I’d been named on five horses,” Corrales said. “I got on the plane. I thought I was going to Washington, D.C., but seven hours later, I was in Washington state.”

During his first season at Playfair Race Course in Spokane, Corrales found it “very difficult to make the turns.” The next year, he set a record at Playfair with 138 wins. In 1986, he won 190 races there. Corrales also rode with success at Longacres and in Macau, China.

Corrales turned to training after his riding career ended but was in Ohio and out of horses about six years ago when Sipp stepped in.

“He gave me two horses to get started,” Corrales said. “He told me to give him $1,000 if the first one won, and he gave me the other one for free. I entered them both on the same day at Beulah Park, and I was surprised when they both won. In two weeks, I had 14 horses.”

Sipp also introduced Corrales to Andy Stronach.

“Andy buys mares and would send them to me to race, and when it came time to breed them, he would take them to the farm,” Corrales said.

In 2011, Stronach asked Corrales if he wanted to train for his father, Frank Stronach. Corrales flew to Kentucky, met Frank Stronach, and was soon headed to Laurel Park, which is owned by The Stronach Group.

Last year, Corrales won 42 races from 211 starters and had purse earnings of more than $1 million. He currently has about 30 horses for the Stronachs and also trains for outside owners.

Andy Stronach bred Bodhisattva, a son of Student Council, and owned him with a partner. The partnership was not going very well, though.

“I went to Andy and said, ‘Why don’t you sell me this horse?’ ” Corrales said. “He said, “Jose, you do a lot of things for me, and he gave me the horse.”

Bodhisattva has won three of 11 starts and $169,000.

“Andy is very happy that the horse is doing good for me,” Corrales said. “Nobody expected him to be what he is.”

◗ On Friday at Pimlico, Corrales has a good chance to win the eighth race, a first-level allowance with a $42,000 purse. Awesome Bill, a 4-year-old son of Awesome Again owned by the Stronach Stable, has finished second in his last two starts and looks ready to take another step through his conditions in the 1 1/16-mile race.

“A mile and a sixteenth is good, but I think a mile and an eighth might even be better,” Corrales said. “He has potential and might have a good future.”