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Financial Woes Threaten Lipizzan Ranch In Myakka City

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By PATRINA A. BOSTIC

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: August 28, 2008

MYAKKA CITY - A Southwest Florida landmark, the ranch where a group of the world-famous Lipizzaner stallions are trained, could be in jeopardy as a bank moves to foreclose on part of the property.

Whitney National Bank filed a foreclosure lawsuit Friday against the Herrmann family, operators of The Original Herrmanns' Royal Lipizzan Stallions of Austria ranch. The bank says in court documents that the family has failed to make payments on more than $1 million in loans.

The foreclosure has been filed on two pieces of land: a 131-acre swath and a 40-acre parcel at the ranch in Myakka City in Manatee County. The family offered the parcels as collateral on a $1 million loan in 2005 from 1st National Bank & Trust.

The loan was passed to Whitney after it took over 1st National Bank & Trust, court records indicate.

Even before the foreclosure, the stallion training operation has been struggling because of rising prices for fuel, grain and sawdust used in stalls.

The burden has led the Herrmann family to question whether they can keep running the ranch passed down from family patriarch Col. Ottomar Herrmann Jr., who died in 2004.

The colonel left his estate to daughter Gabriella "Gabby" Herrmann and other family members.

Gabby Herrmann is performing in Michigan with the stallions and could not be reached for comment.

"I'm still kind of in shock with everything because I'm not sure what's going on," said Carmen Herrmann Stiles, a cousin of Gabby Herrmann.

Stiles said she is trying to find out what went wrong with the loan. She thought there might even have been some kind of mix-up.

It is unclear how foreclosures on the two parcels may affect the winter training performances held for the public at the ranch.

The Herrmanns began showing the Lipizzaners shortly after arriving in Myakka City in the 1960s, but the breed has been in the Herrmann family for more than 300 years. Their roots reach back to Austria, where the Herrmanns began training and breeding the horses during the reign of Emperor Ferdinand II.

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