Elmer Heubeck Jr. Dead at 85

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Elmer Heubeck Jr., a pioneer in the Florida Thoroughbred breeding industry, died Monday, May 12 due to a heart condition. He was 85.

Heubeck, a Maryland horseman and graduate of the University of Maryland in 1939, moved his family from Maryland to Florida in 1945 to manage Carl Rose's Rosemere Farm. Rosemere was the first established Thoroughbred farm in the Ocala area. He purchased his own operation, Quail Roost Farm, in 1958.

In the 1950s, Rose and Heubeck's novel approach of taking a group of horses from Ocala to Hialeah late in their yearling year and selling them was the foundation for today's 2-year-olds in training sales.

Heubeck went to work with New York financier Jack Dreyfus in the early 1960s, and helped develop his Hobeau Farms into a national powerhouse. Its list of stakes winners included Beau Purple, who beat Kelso three times in major stakes, plus the team of Onion and Prove Out, who each beat Secretariat in 1973.

In 1999, Heubeck sold Quail Roost, purchasing another parcel of land, naming it Quail Roost II.

Details regarding services for Heubeck are pending.

He is survived by his wife, Harriet; and son, Kerry.

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