Marlene Sweeney selling Keinbah property where Shane Tritton, Clarrie Sweeney and Clayton Harmey trained thousands of harness racing winners

Jurds Real Estate described it as “a horse lovers dream” but that doesn’t even begin to describe the horse training history of the property, owned by Mr Tritton’s mother Marlene Sweeney.

When Mrs Sweeney and her late husband Clarrie purchased the Keinbah acreage 24 years ago, all it had besides the home was an old shed frame.

Mr and Mrs Sweeney started out training 15 horses and built two tracks, a large barn and eight stables and steel yards.

When Mr Sweeney died in 2001, Clayton Harmey took over the horses. Shane Tritton was tutoring in Cessnock at the time, but later came on board as the trainer.

It wasn’t before long that Mr Tritton tasted success, having trained Newcastle and NSW premiership winning horses, Group 1 winners and achieving a NSW trainer’s national record of 222 wins in 2014-2015.

Mrs Sweeney said the 25-acre property was what allowed him to achieve, as the horses had space to roam around when they weren’t being trained. 

“They were put out in large paddocks during the day,” Mrs Sweeney said. “They were treated like old brumbies.”

“A lot of success of Shane’s was because the property allowed him to do that.”

But an offer to move to Sydney’s harness racing headquarters at Menangle came at the start of this year.

Mrs Sweeney said that racing there offered triple the prize money and travelling back and forth would have been too expensive and tough on the horses.

Mrs Sweeney said she originally planned to lease the Keinbah property, but it was not financially viable.

She said she would like to see someone use the space ideally with horses, but thought it would be a good location for a bed and breakfast or a restaurant.

“Clarrie, Shane and Clayton all had enormous success training off that property,” she said.

“I’d like to see them [the new owners] continue on with horses but that’s their choice. I’d rather the property be used to its full potential.”