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Ocala Jockey Club on the Market

The 922-acre equestrian community is listed for $16.5 million.

Competition during a 3-Day Event at the Ocala Jockey Club

Competition during a 3-Day Event at the Ocala Jockey Club

Shannon Brinkman Photo

Pavla and Erik Nygaard's Ocala Jockey Club equestrian community has been put on the market for $16.5 million, according to a notice from Sotheby's International Realty.

The Nygaards bought the 922-acre equestrian development in November 2005 and operated a training center with a five-eighths-mile track and a stallion barn that is home to freshman sire Irish Surf , a grade 3-winning son of Giant's Causeway, and Thoreau, a homebred son of Gone West. The farm has also been the site for four years of the Ocala Jockey Club International 3-Day Event each fall. The 2020 event had been designated as the new host of the CCI4*-L National Championships but was canceled due to restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The development, which at one time was home to Barbara LaCroix's renowned breeding outfit Meadowbrook Farm at the Ocala Jockey Club, features seven barns, 35 townhomes, a network of trails, natural springs, and a 10,125-square-foot clubhouse.

Irish Surf at Ocala Jockey Club
Photo: Louise E. Reinagel/Courtesy Ocala Jockey Club
Irish Surf at Ocala Jockey Club

"We are selling the property to simplify our operations and to provide more time to focus on other personal priorities and business projects," said Pavla Nygaard. "Our Thoroughbred breeding and racing operations are small and select, and the farm is larger than our own needs. The farm is an iconic unique piece of land, and to take it to what it deserves to be means an investment of time, team, dollars, calendar of events and resident herd size that are a challenge to accomplish with the priorities we have identified as being most important to us. We sincerely hope that the next owner will be excited to build on the foundations of this great one-of-a-kind collectible property and have a dream farm for their own operations and legacy or a top-notch Fair-Hill-like 'farm-to-race' training facility that takes advantage of the existing European style rolling-hill maintained turf gallops developed for the International 3-Day Eventing competition."

Nygaard added that Irish Surf and Thoreau will remain at the Ocala Jockey Club until the property is sold, which also applies to all other of the farm's operations.

"Plans after that time will depend on the future owner's interest in standing stallions as part of their operations, and considerations to the stallions' best interests and alignment to the market," she said.