Barwon Heads

In March 2006 Danny O'Brien finalized the purchase of 160 acres of prime rural holding at Connewarre, just 5km from Barwon Heads township and less than 2km from the wide sandy expanses of famed 13th Beach.

The holding provided a blank canvas for Danny to design and develop a world class private training centre, the envy of trainers all over Australia.

Update June 2010 - by General Manager Rohan Hawker

After completing the construction of the racetrack is now this time last year, we are very happy with how it has withstood the first 12 months of training.

The 1600m grass track with an 800m uphill straight, and a chute at the 1000m mark for barrier trials, is being used everyday by the 15 horses in work at the property.

The grass track is 20m wide and is a kikuyu grain similar to the outstanding surface at Flemington racecourse.

On the inside of the grass is an 8m sand track.Both tracks are fully irrigated with over 500 state of the art pop-up sprinklers, using recycled water from the nearby Black Rock water treatment facility.

A feature of the tracks will be the hedge borders, with 10,000 luma hedges planted on the inside of the sand and outside of the grass track, providing a stunning backdrop to the horses working.

In the past 12 months we have completed an array of day yards with cover and larger paddocks.

A large multi-purpose shed was been built which enabled us to commence training horse on the property from August last year.

We have been conservative with our timings for the detailed stable/infrastructure build in the current economic climate and are budgeting for this to be complete in the next 12 months.

Guests at Danny's wedding in June 2009 had a "sneak peek" at the enormity of the track development and the reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

There is no doubt this investment gives Danny the best training set-up in the country to complement our Flemington facilities.