Bodhisattva outlasted Noteworthy Peach to win the Federico Tesio at Pimlco. Photo by Laurie Asseo.
from a Maryland Jockey Club release
Laurel Park based owner-trainer Jose Corrales has not ruled out a possible start in the Preakness for Federico Tesio winner Bodhisattva.
Bred in California, Bodhisattva is a sophomore son of multiple graded stakes winner Student Council, whose Grade 1 wins include the 2008 Pimlico Special, also run at the Preakness distance.
“If the possibility comes, I think I will probably run,” Corrales said Monday. “I will not run a horse just to run the horse. If I don’t feel a horse can run in the first three, why run? That’s the way I think.”
Corrales entered and scratched Bodhisattva from the $75,000 Parx Derby on May 2 and instead breezed the horse seven furlongs in 1:29 at Laurel, his first work since winning the 1 1/16-mile Tesio by 1 ½ lengths over Noteworthy Peach.
“I think this horse improved from that race. He just keeps improving every time. I think now I’ve got him where I want him,” Corrales said. “The reason why I scratched him at Parx was because it was too early to run him back and I wanted to work him before I decide what’s going to happen.
“He worked the way I wanted to,” he said. “I put another horse at the half-mile pole and he was coming from behind to catch up with the other horse, a fresh horse, from the half-mile pole and he beat the other horse easy. I think he’s 90 percent of where I want him. If he had run in the stakes the other day he would have been 80 percent. I think he’s still going to get better.”
Bred by Andy Stronach, son of The Stronach Group founder and chairman Frank Stronach, Bodhisattva was among the early nominations to the Triple Crown. He ran second in the Private Terms in March at Laurel and fifth in the Remsen (G2) for 2-year-olds last fall at Aqueduct.
“You start nominating a horse for the Triple Crown, sometimes just to see what could happen, like winning the lottery. Pretty soon you hit a number and then you hit another number and maybe you win the lottery,” Corrales said. “You dream, and people just wish to be in those kinds of races once. They pay a lot of money to get the chance to be in one of those races one day. I have a chance. You never know. Even if he loses, you still go on with life.”
