Mary and Mark Martinez at the 2019 Breeders’ Cup

Mark Martinez is the TOBA March Member of the Month.

Agave nectar is used to sweeten everything from cakes to tea, so it’s appropriate that Mark Martinez’s Agave Racing has tasted delicious success. This year, Count Again, whom Agave co-owns with breeder Sam-Son Farm, has won the Feb. 5 Thunder Road Stakes (G3T) and the March 5 Frank E. Kilroe Mile Stakes (G1T). Miss Bigly, co-owned by Agave, Living the Dream Stables, and Rockin Robin Racing Stables, has annexed the Feb. 12 Bayakoa Stakes (G3) and finished second in the March 5 Beholder Mile Stakes (G1).

Now a resident of San Antonio, Texas, Michigan native Martinez owns and operates M2, which sells tech solutions to the federal government. “In Michigan, it was DRC, Detroit Race Course, and small harness tracks like Northville,” he recalled, “but I really got passionate about the game when I lived in Northern California. I lived in the Bay Area, and I would frequent Bay Meadows and Golden Gate Fields.”

He added, “I came to the game through the betting window, not necessarily the breeding shed. And so at work, we would all put money together and we’d drive to Bay Meadows and make a Pick Six wager, back when they were on cards, and you had to color in the dots for each race and they ran them through and you could hear the results on the radio.”

While Martinez’s eldest daughter Stefanie was young, his wife, Mary, worked weekends. “I didn’t let that slow me down,” Martinez remembered fondly. “I would get a couple of bottles and pack up a diaper bag and a stroller and go to Bay Meadows on a Saturday.” He added, “We’d watch the races and then I’d pack her up and we’d go home. And it was funny; that night, I’d lay out her blanket and watch the race. I always had the race replay or review; they always had a program, and when they would play the trumpet at the start of the race, she’d raise up her head, so she’d recognize that sound.”

“Fifteen years ago was when I broke into the game from an ownership perspective,” Martinez said, “and I read a bunch of books and I was trying to get smart. And I at least learned enough not to dive enough to try and buy a horse on my own. I kind of waded into the pool; I didn’t dive in.” He did his due diligence before buying 10% of a yearling named Goodwillambassador. “It’s hard to get excited, watching them stand on a farm maturing,” he said, “so I bought into a couple of other horses that were off the track with that same syndicate. I liked the syndicate and the folks that were in it. And I remember the first horse that I ever owned that ran was a filly named Ready to Live, and the first race she ran for us, she won a stake.”

Agave and Sam-Son-owned Say the Word captured the 2020 Northern Dancer Turf Stakes (G1T) and 2021 Hollywood Turf Cup (G2T) and Elkhorn Stakes (G2T). The More Than Ready gelding ran second in the Jan. 30 San Marcos Stakes (G2T) at the Great Race Place. The successful partnership began when Martinez privately bought a colt named Ransom the Moon from the venerable farm. Campaigned with Jeffry Wilke, the son of Malibu Moon captured the Bing Crosby Stakes (G1) twice and took his owners to the 2017 Breeders’ Cup Sprint (G1).

Ransom the Moon now stands at Calumet Farm, but Martinez isn’t looking to get too involved in breeding. “At the end of the day, what I’m passionate about is finding horses, sending them to my trainers, hoping that we can change something or that we’ve found something or that we can improve something that moves the horse up, and try and compete at the highest levels,” he explained.

Agave has eleven horses in training, all with Phil D’Amato. Until recently, Martinez also campaigned in partnership Charmaine’s Mia, who rattled off three consecutive graded stakes wins last year before finishing third in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint (G1T). She is now a broodmare.

Martinez, who expressed appreciation for personal and professional guidance from those who support his operation, hopes to get to the Breeders’ Cup winners’ circle. “I think I’ve been in five Breeders’ Cup races now; I hit the board in the last one,” he mused. “My operation isn’t the kind that’s going to take me to the [Kentucky] Derby or Oaks, so I don’t really Derby dream. So I think a realistic goal for me is to win a Breeders’ Cup race.”