Career
A business administration graduate from New York University, he joined a Wall Street stock brokerage firm before becoming a managing partner in a similar firm. In 1964, Wygod became involved with Computer Sciences Corporation (Civil Service Commission) in California, run by founders Roy Nutt and Fletcher Jones. In the 1970s he shifted his focus to the burgeoning health care industry, buying Glasrock Medical Services in 1977 and after five years of solid growth, sold it for a large profit.
In 1983 he established Medco Containment Services, Incorporated. and built it into the largest mail order pharmacy in the United States.
In 1993 Wygod sold Medco to Merck & Company for more than United States$6 billion. Since boyhood, Martin Wygod has had a love of horses and the sport of Thoroughbred Horse racing.
Growing up in New York he spent time as a hot walker at Belmont Park and Aqueduct Racetrack. Fletcher Jones owned Westerly Study Farms near Santa Ynez, California and was involved in horse racing for several years prior to his untimely death in 1972.
Since 1975 the Wygods have owned the 240-acre (097 km2) River Edge Farm near Buellton in the Santa Ynez Valley.
In 1995, they left the East Coast of the United States to make their home on a 110-acre (045 km2) estate in Rancho Santa Fe, California. Their River Edge Farm was the leading breeder in California in 2006, 2007 and 2008. In 1996 Martin Wygod became a trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and serves on the Board of Directors of the Delegate March Thoroughbred Club.
Pamela Wygod also oversees two foundations, the Rose Foundation and the WebMD Health Foundation.
They are supporters of Breeders" Cup Charities
Lefty Nickerson was the first trainer hired to condition Wygod"s horses for racing. One of their early stakes race wins came in the 1973 Derby Trial with the colt, Settecento.
As of 2009, their trainer is John Shirreffs. Other successful racehorses raced by Martin and Pamela Wygod include:
Her 2004 colt (later named Jalil) sired by Storm Cat was sold at the September 2005 Keeneland Sales for $9.7 million
Sweet Catomine (b 2002) - American Champion Two-Year-Old Filly.
After Market (b 2003) - son of Tranquility Lake.
