O'BRIEN TO SELL 13TH BEACH PROPERTY

Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Danny O’Brien is selling his Thirteenth Beach Training Centre property on the Bellarine Peninsula.

The property features three tracks – a 2000m grass track, an all-weather sand track, and a 1600m heavy sand track – as well as a barn with 46 boxes. There are also 16 spelling paddocks on the property, which is 64.39 hectares in size, while its location allows for easy access for horses to work on the beach itself at Thirteenth Beach.

Several of O’Brien’s superstars over the last decade or so have called the Thirteenth Beach Training Centre home, including Melbourne Cup hero Vow And Declare, Cox Plate winner Shamus Award, 2013 Newmarket Handicap victor Shamexpress, top weight-for-age galloper Russian Camelot and classy colt Star Witness.

O’Brien noted the decision to sell the property was made to help streamline his business and will allow him to concentrate on his stables on course at Flemington and Geelong.

“We just had an evaluation of all of our business towards the end of last year and figured that rather than training 120-140 horses like we have for the last five or six years, we’d like to get down to about 80,” O’Brien explained to Racing.com.

“In doing that, we really only need two venues now, not three. Particularly with the recommitment to Flemington, there’s going to be a lot of money spent on Flemington over the next few years, upgrading the facilities here.

“We’re going to keep the Flemington and Geelong bases, the property at Barwon Heads we’re probably not going to need now that we’re going to streamline things a bit.

“It’s been a fantastic property for us, and we’ll be sad to see it go but the way we’re going to structure things going forward, we’ll just have a Geelong base and a Flemington base.”

The Thirteenth Beach Training Centre is being sold by Donovan and Co. and can be viewed online.

Click Here to view property listing

O’Brien has started 2026 in excellent form, saddling up 11 winners from his last 50 runners at a strike rate of 22 percent. He’ll be represented in Saturday’s Group One Blue Diamond Stakes by Closer To Free, who won the colts and geldings division of the Blue Diamond Prelude last time out.

Story by Ed Sadler for Racing.com