“When you want something, you can do it. And if you’ve got the opportunity, you’ve got to take it.”

Trainer Jose Corrales has certainly lived up to his words. Growing up in Panama, he fell in love with the sport at age 7 and pursued a career as a jockey, becoming a successful rider in his home country before moving to the United States.

Here, things got tougher. He was shut out of riding opportunities and shooed away from the shedrows. At Belmont Park, he befriended Wesley Ward, a top apprentice rider with training success in his future. It was Ward who convinced Corrales to shift his tack to Washington state.

Compared to the massive oval at Big Sandy, the five-furlong Playfair Race Course seemed like the smallest track he’d ever seen, says Corrales. 

Still, the move proved auspicious. He set a track record for most wins in a season and then ended up breaking his own record later on. Then, Corrales received a contract to ride in Macau and became a champion jockey there.

Since then, Corrales has moved on to training horses – but his passion for riding lives on in his mentorship of young jockeys.

“When I was in Panama and not getting chances, I was sent to train with someone who was tough, very tough,” he remembers. The conditions were hot, and the work was demanding, but Corrales persevered.

“He used to say, ‘If you want this so bad, you’ve got to push yourself hard, and if you don’t, don’t waste my time and don’t waste yours.’ And I carry that with me.”

He was just starting out himself when he began to apply the lessons he’d learned to help others succeed – and succeed, they did. Among his first mentees in the U.S. were Art Madrid, Jr., who captured the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Apprentice Jockey in 1985, and Eric Beitia, New York’s leading apprentice rider in 1980.

And the list goes on from there. His nephew, Elvis Trujillo, won more than 2,000 races under his uncle’s tutelage and is now a trainer as well. Then there was Michael Baze, whose death of a drug overdose further solidified Corrales’ desire to not only create good young riders, but also to keep them away from the wrong people, places and things.

His influence extends internationally, as well. At 17, British jockey David Egan was sent by his father, a friend from their Macau days, to learn from Corrales. Just a few years later, in 2021, he won the lucrative Saudi Cup aboard Mishriff. “A father figure to me,” Egan has called Corrales.

Another nephew of Corrales, Luis, was a perennial champion jockey in Macau before that circuit closed in 2024.

It’s all about coaching, Corrales says – just like any other athlete, including racehorses.

“I can fix any rider. I can get riders who have been in trouble with drugs or other things, and nobody is using them anymore, and I can mentor them and get them back.”

Corrales said he prefers riders come “from scratch,” without any riding experience to speak of.

Take Walter Rodriguez, for example. After coming to the U.S. as a teenager, he worked moving appliances in Baltimore, where people marveled at his strength despite his short stature. Someone suggested he become a jockey.

When he went to Corrales for guidance, Rodriguez had never worked with horses. So Corrales started with the basics – mucking stalls, hotwalking, and so on – before eventually putting the young man in a saddle. 

Flash forward to spring 2023 – less than a year after his first win as a jockey – when Rodriguez took home the leading rider title for Turfway’s January through March meet. And the leading trainer? Wesley Ward, the man who’d helped Corrales get a foothold as a rider all those years ago.

His most recent mentee is 17-year-old Yedsit Hazlewood, a new apprentice on the Laurel circuit who earned his first career win on April 4 – aboard, naturally, a Corrales horse. He’d win three more on the weekend and is now four-for-21 through April 8, with half of his mounts hitting the board.

Corrales has said he believes Hazlewood can be like “one of the Ortiz brothers” – jockeys Irad and Jose being among the nation’s best. Other trainers are starting to say similar things.

For Corrales, Hazlewood might be the latest student, but he certainly won’t be the last.

“I’m blessed,” he says. “I just keep doing it, and I love it, because I never will forget the people who kicked me out and wouldn’t give me the chance.”