DEATH OF MR. PERCY MARTIN.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1522, 26 June 1919, Page 9

DEATH OF MR. PERCY MARTIN.

The death took place at Hastings on Saturday week of the well-known trainer and some time owner of racehorses, Percy Martin, who had been suffering for some years with an internal trouble but was well enough to attend a football match during the afternoon. Returning therefrom he had not long reached his home when he sat down and almost immediately expired. He was one of the old boys, who graduated with the late Mr. Henry Redwood, “Father of the New Zealand Turf,” as that sportsman was familiarly referred to. He was 67 years of age, and in the early days of racing in Nelson was with the brothers George and Edward Cutts and R. J. Mason, and later on with the lates Sam Powell and R. Raey, wellknown horsemen and afterwards trainers, S. Powell being the first of the most successful starters in New Zealand before the barrier came into use. T. and A. Lyford and for some time E. J. Rae were associated in the same stable, and were amongst those best known as Redwood’s boys.

The deceased sportsman, for he was one in every sense of the term, for years trained horses after leaving Mr. Redwood, some on his own account and some for various clients, and later took the position of trainer for a number of Hawke’s Bay sportsmen and finally as private trainer for Mr. S. H. Gollan, acting in that capacity in New Zealand and for a time in Australia. Some of the horses he trained and which met with success were Tiraillieur (winner of the New Zealand Cup, Canterbury Cup, Great Northern Derby, Hawke’s Bay Guineas, J.C. Handicap, Napier Stakes, Wanganui Derby), Bonnie Scotland (A.J.C. Derby), Tiraillerie (Oaks, Northern Champagne), and Tirant d’Eau (N.Z. Cup). With Namoa, Jet d’Eau, Tire, Captain Webb, Darnley, Kimberley, Ival, in New Zealand he won races for Mr. Gollan, and also with the jumper Norton. Seahorse was a’so trained by Martin when that horse won all his three-year-old engagements, which included the N.Z. Cup, Derby, and Canterbury Cup, not to mention other races. The number of winners he trained would take up a lot of space to tell of. Percy Martin had numerous friends and was very generally esteemed.