Frank “Pancho” Martin, the Hall of Fame trainer who dominated the NYRA circuit during the 1970s and early 1980s, died Wednesday night at his home in Garden City, N.Y., following a brief illness. He was 86.
Martin was best known as the trainer of Sham, who finished second to Secretariat in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 1973, before running out of gas in the Belmont Stakes. “His favorite horse was Sham,” said Martin’s son, Greg. “He always loved Sham.”
Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1925, Martin grew up two blocks from the Oriental Park Racetrack and began as a hotwalker. After leaving Cuba in 1947, Martin came to the U.S. two years later and settled in New York in 1951. He quickly gained a reputation as an astute horseman with a knack for taking other trainers’ unwanted horses and building them into stakes winners.
In a career that spanned more than 60 years, Martin saddled 3,240 winners and earned more than $47.5 million in earnings, according to Equibase. Although not as active in recent years, in 2012, Martin saddled 77 starters, finishing second five times and third twice.
Martin led the trainer standings in New York with 106 winners in 1971 and was a strong presence on the circuit for 10 straight years from 1973-82. Martin was inducted into Racing’s Hall of Fame in 1981.
“He was the greatest trainer at looking at a horse and knowing what was wrong with it,” added Gary Contessa, a four-time leading trainer in New York who worked for Martin from 1980-85. “He’d claim horses, or buy horses that other people had given up on, and turn to me and say, ‘He doesn’t know what he just lost.’ ”
Twice the champion trainer at Saratoga Race Course, in 1980 and 1982, Martin won more than 20 individual meet titles in New York and ranks second with 910 wins behind Gasper Moschera (925) at Aqueduct and fourth overall at Belmont (531) from 1976-2011. In 1974, he won 156 races for the year at Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park, and Saratoga Race Course, a record that stood for 33 years until broken by Contessa in 2007.
Surviving Martin are his wife of 46 years, Charlene; sons Frank, Jr. and Greg; daughters Charlene and Margaret, and seven grandchildren, including Carlos, also a trainer on the NYRA circuit. A funeral mass will be held today at 10 a.m. at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in West Hempstead, N.Y.