Panamanian-born jockey Luis Corrales secured his eighth champion jockey title in Macau over the weekend.
Corrales first claimed the title in 2012-13 and went on to win four consecutively. His next series of championship-winning years started in 2019-20, culminating in another four-year dominance on the jockey roster.
Corrales, who first arrived in Macau in 1996 as a fresh faced 17-year-old, commenced his apprenticeship at the Macau Jockey Club’s Apprentice Jockeys’ Training School.
“Yes, Macau has been a wonderful place to me, my Uncle Jose who was Champion jockey here bought me as a kid. I remember my first winner was for Alan Leung back in 1996,” Corrales was quoted in an MJC article in 2021.
In 1997, however, a horrible race-fall almost ended Corrales’ career, let alone his life, with the apprentice suffering a fractured skull, multiple facial fractures and a broken shoulder.
After spending a whole season on the sidelines, he returned to the saddle in the 1998 – 1999 season to be crowned Champion Apprentice with 40 winners, and in tenth spot overall behind premier jockey Patrick Payne (106 wins).
Corrales claimed this season’s championship on 64 wins, a healthy 20-win buffer on the runner-up, Japanese jockey S Nakano on 44 wins. Y.C. Fung, 43 wins, was crowned champion trainer for a fourth time, with W.K. Lam next-best on 36.
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