Prominent Thoroughbred owner-breeder and Rockingham Park chairman Max Hugel died on Monday after a long battle with cancer and related complications. He was 81.

A resident of Windham, New Hampshire, Hugel passed away at his farm in Ocala.

For the past 24 years, Hugel was the board chair at Rockingham Venture Inc., which owns Rockingham Park.

Hugel partnered with the late Joseph Carney, who died in 2003; the late Edward Keelan, who died last month; and Dr. Thomas Carney to purchase Rockingham Park from the New Hampshire Jockey Club in 1983. A fire had destroyed the track three years earlier, and the partners purchased the facility to revive Thoroughbred racing in New Hampshire. 

"Everyone at the track is certainly going to miss Max," said Ed Callahan, vice president and general manager of Rockingham Park. "He was a tremendous character and was actively participating in a telephone conference call as early as two weeks ago."

Racing under the name of Field of Dreams Stable, Hugel campaigned his homebred Grade 3 winner Gal O Gal and owned stakes winner and sire Manlove among many others.
  
A native of the Bronx, New York, Hugel enlisted in the United States Army at age 18 and later served as a first lieutenant in the military intelligence section of the Army.

Passionate about politics, Hugel worked for former President Ronald Reagan’s New Hampshire presidential primary campaign in 1980 before heading the Small Business Administration after Reagan was elected. He later served as the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency under his close friend, William Casey.

Hugel also formerly served as the chief operating officer of Centronics Data Corporation, one of the first American manufacturers of computer printers; was the founder and president of Brother International, manufacturers of sewing machines and other equipment; was the vice chairman of The Carmen Group, in Washington, D. C., since 1986, a lobbying and government relations firm; and was one of the earliest investors in cellular telephones.

Hugel is survived by his wife, Diane, four children and 10 grandchildren. Funeral services were not announced.