The Untold Story of Timely Writer & Martin Family

Frannie and Peter Martin were brothers born, raised, and schooled in Dorchester,

Massachusetts. Shortly after returning from World War II, the brothers pursue their love of horses first developed as young boys. Over  the next 30 years, the Martin brothers purchase cheap racing horses with little to moderate success, though all the while enjoying the competition of the sport and their love of thoroughbreds. The purchase of Timely Writer for $13,500 in 1980 transformed their lives as they knew it, graduating from the minor league racing tracks to the elite racing tracks in New York, Florida, and Kentucky.

An unnamed foal was born on a non-descript horse farm in Ocala, Florida, in April

1979. As neither of his parents raced competitively as thoroughbreds, there was little to no interest from prospective buyers in purchasing the foal. It took the keen eye and talents of the Tony Everard, as the buyer’s agent for the Martin brothers, in order to discover and develop Timely Writer into a champion colt, who a region and the country would come to call their own.

The story of Timely Writer and the Martin family is about a colt who is transformed

from a horse nobody wanted into a thoroughbred everyone needed. Due to his popularity and success during his two-year-old racing season in 1981, Timely Writer was nicknamed “the people’s champion,” evoking comparisons from others to the legendary Seabiscuit. During the start of his three-year-old racing season in March and April of 1982, Timely Writer swept through the Florida horse racing circuit like a hurricane, establishing himself as the overwhelming favorite for the Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown. Travel along through the untold story of the legendary Timely Writer, his blue-collar owners, and the rest of the country, as they live out their real-life fairy tale and adventures in The Ride of Their Lives.