“I want to have the opportunity to talk to you a little bit,” trainer Jose Corrales said last month.

“I ride this apprentice, who’s going to run this week,” Corrales mentioned. “This kid is from Panama. He’s been in [jockey] school in Panama, and he’s been at the racetrack since he was nine years old. He’s got so much talent. I’m thinking he’s going to be one of the Ortiz kids in the future.”

Corrales knows about such things. A successful rider with over 1,000 wins in the United States and plenty more in Macau before switching to training, Corrales has mentored other successful young riders in Maryland.

He feels that 17-year-old Yedsit Hazlewood is one of his best pupils.

After Hazlewood failed to secure a victory in his first 12 races, Corrales’s faith was vindicated when the ten-pound apprentice scooted up the rail to win Friday’s sixth race aboard Addy’s Laddy T N T.

A half-hour later, Hazlewood rallied on the far outside aboard longshot Skip Thru Da Fire to take the seventh.

Corrales trained both winners and beamed like a proud papa as Hazlewood was given the traditional first-winner initiation by his fellow riders, which consisted of dousing him with several buckets of water followed by a coat of shaving cream and baby powder.

“He came here a year ago, but I could not get his paperwork ready for him to start riding,” Corrales said. “He got a job at Fair Hill and was galloping horses for a lot of other trainers. Now, he’s ready. I’m putting him on all my horses. I got [him] an agent [John DiNatale], and he’s got a chance to ride for everybody. He’s got the perfect size, the weight, and that’s the main thing.”

Corrales completed Laurel’s late Pick 3 when Fainor’s Filets won the final race on the program under jockey Weston Hamilton.