BY CYNTHIA MCFARLAND
A typical morning finds Max Ubide training his horses on the track at Ocala Breeders’ Sales.
After training wraps up, he often hangs out at the barn for a while and chats with other horsemen before heading home to his own farm where he does chores and tends to his horses there.
Thoroughbreds have been Ubide’s entire career. Now 74, he’s still as fascinated with racing as when he fell in love with the game as a teenager.
South Florida Beginnings
The oldest of two boys, Ubide was born in Cuba, but raised in South Beach, Florida. His father was just 26-years-old when he died in a car accident in Miami in 1954. As a new widow, his mother took Max and his younger brother back to Cuba to live with family for a few years. He returned to Florida in 1960 and made America his permanent home.
Ubide graduated from Miami Beach High School in 1970, but he’d fallen in love with horses before then.
Max Ubide - ©Judit Seipert
“I was a beach boy, but my friend’s dad had a horse at the old Tropical Park, which was called Calder at Tropical Park then,” Ubide said. “When we were out of school in the summer, we’d go over there and piddle around. Kids weren’t allowed go to grandstand in those days, but we’d go to the backstretch. That was my introduction to racehorses.”
Ubide was in his late teens when he got his first job at the racetrack working for trainer George Julian. Ubide laughs when recalling that one of his tasks was to push the hot walker machine because it didn’t have a motor.
For a short time, he took a job at Miami International Airport, but it didn’t take long for the 20-year-old Ubide to realize he’d rather work with horses.
“I got the bug to go back to the track. A friend of mine was working for LeRoy Jolley at Hialeah. [Jolley’s barn] was right across from Lucien Laurin,” Ubide recalled. “My mom said I was crazy when I quit my job at the airport to work for Lucien Laurin for $75 a week.”
It was the early 1970s, which meant Ubide was there during the glory days of Riva Ridge and yes, Secretariat.
“I have photos of myself with Secretariat and even got to groom him a few times,” Ubide said. “He was tough. He respected his groom, Eddie Sweat, but not me.”
In 1975, Ubide began working as a groom for Marablue Farm’s racing stable.
“I rubbed Proud Birdie for almost all his races and always took care of him when he was stabled at Calder,” Ubide said of the multiple graded stakes winning Florida-bred who raced for four years before becoming Marablue Farm’s first main breeding stallion.
After his Proud Birdie era, Ubide got his trainer’s license at Hollywood Park and had a stable in Southern California.
This was also when he and Nina married in 1977. They went on to have two children—a son and a daughter.
While at Hollywood Park in 1977, Ubide was offered a position with Glen Hill Farm and worked as assistant trainer for their racing stable with such multiple graded stakes winning Florida-breds as Relaunch, Prize Spot and many more. Of course, Relaunch went on to become a prominent sire.
Ubide returned to the Sunshine State in 1979 to train for Arnold Winnick at Hialeah.
His connection with Glen Hill Farm led to an opportunity to work at the Ocala operation, which he did for about three-and-a-half years.
“I learned about the mares and babies, which ended up being a big plus for me later in life,” he said.
At the same time, Ubide bought a five-acre Ocala farm near Live Oak Plantation as an investment. He and Nina named it High Pine Farm after the towing pines on the property.
Max Ubide and Florida-bred Nina’s Last Gift - ©Judit Seipert
Ubide still craved the trainer’s life and returned to the racetrack, conditioning horses for Eugene Cashman’s September Farm.
The father of two young children at the time, Ubide came to the conclusion that, as much as he loved racetrack life, it wasn’t ideal for a growing family.
“When you’re on the track, you’re…moving everywhere,” he said. “When you have kids, there is no doubt that lifestyle is hard on them. You’re at one place a few months, then you pack up and move to another track. It’s hard on kids when they have friends at school, then you pack up and are gone again. My daughter started stuttering and I decided to leave the track. We gave up racetrack life and moved back to Ocala in the late ‘80s and have been here ever since.”
Breeding and Racing
After settling on their Ocala farm, Ubide got involved in the breeding end of the business; at one time he owned more than a dozen broodmares.
He’s made it a point to support local stallions and breed Florida-breds.
“The Florida breeders’ awards are a good incentive to breed mares here,” Ubide said. “I’m lucky enough to train myself, but it does help to get money from third through first place as a breeder. Every little bit helps.”
The Florida breeders’ awards are a good incentive to breed mares here. – Max Ubide
As a breeder, his biggest success story is Florida-bred Roll On Big Joe, by Prospective out of Ubide’s Victory Gallop mare, Nina’s Gift, fittingly named after his wife.
“No doubt about it, Roll On Big Joe is the best horse I’ve bred. I let the horses do the talking and he upgraded the expectations I had for him,” Ubide said.
Consigned by Gayle Woods at the 2022 Ocala Breeders’ Sales June Sale, Roll On Big Joe was purchased for $90,000 by Tim Cohen of Santa Clarita, California in the name of his Rancho Temescal.
A multiple graded stakes winner of $981,475 (as of June 23, 2026), 6-year-old Roll On Big Joe is now owned by Rancho Temescal, Rancho Temescal Thoroughbred Partners, White Fence and Richard Hale Jr. and trained by Robert Hess, Jr. The gray gelding has been on the board in 19 of 25 starts. His 10 wins include the Grade 3 Kelly’s Landing at Churchill Downs and the Grade 3 Palos Verdes at Santa Anita, both in 2025.
Ubide has happily followed the gelding’s career and hope to see Roll On Big Joe become a millionaire soon. And with the new Export Incentives paid by the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ and Owners’ Association in 2026, Ubide has received $4,000 for Roll On Big Joe’s victory in the February 8 King Cotton (Listed) at Oaklawn Park.
Racing Stable
Ubide continues to maintain a small racing stable with horses running under his name and Nina’s.
He enjoys indulging his two grandchildren by naming horses after them, such as Lioness Lillian and Black Bean Henry.
Rather than maintain stalls at the racetrack, Ubide races off the farm and keeps his horses in training at OBS, as his home farm doesn’t have a track.
Max Ubide and Florida-bred Nina’s Last Gift - ©Judit Seipert
“OBS does a really good job maintaining the track; they have a real racetrack mentality there,” he said.
His current stable consists of three homebreds. Two are fillies who will likely become broodmares after their racing careers. The best of these is Nina’s Last Gift, a winning daughter of First Dude with $106, 365 in current earnings.
A half-sister to Roll On Big Joe, Nina’s Last Gift is the final foal out of Nina’s Gift, who died after foaling her.
And that, in a nutshell, is the saga of the owner/breeder. Elation and heartache can be entwined, but the overall story is what keeps participants in the game year after year.
Max Ubide sums it up succinctly. “It gets in your blood.”
Cynthia McFarland is a full-time freelance writer whose work has earned regional and national recognition, including a Steel Dust Award from the American Quarter Horse Association. A lifelong horsewoman and the author of nine non-fiction books, she lives on a small farm outside Ocala.
Photo Credits: ©Judit Seipert
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