Hawkinsville, GA — Gerald Lilley has decided to trade his snow shovel for sunscreen. After six years of managing the Manestreet Stable in Rockwood, Ont., he will soon be spending his winters in Georgia, managing the Hawkinsville Training Center.

Canadian winters often mean sleepless nights plowing snow and conditioning frozen tracks. Bundling up in layers of clothing, gloves, goggles, scarves, and boots. Only to wake in the morning to start the plowing and conditioning all over again.

The soft red Georgian clay track comes with its own challenges, but Lilley has worked on this track in his younger days and looks forward to doing so again.

The Hawkinsville Training Center has an all weather, half-mile track and a one mile red clay track. Hawkinsville Training Center photo.

Only 125 miles north of the Florida border, Hawkinsville is blessed with a temperate climate, that is cool in the morning and sunny and warm in the afternoon. It really is the greatest place to train a horse, not the snow and frozen tracks of the north, or the extreme heat farther south. Horses stay sound and don’t miss many days because of weather.

According to Fred Drouillard, who has been training horses at Hawkinsville every winter for the last 16 years, “Hawkinsville is the best kept secret in the South. The track is wonderful and the rates can not be beat.”

The Hawkinsville Training Center has an all weather, half-mile track and a one mile red clay track. There are 450 horse stalls with dorm rooms at the end of each barn, and RV hookups available.

“Some trainers come to Hawkinsville for the golf,” says Drouillard. “The beautiful PGA course in Hawkinsville is $25/game and the golf course in nearby Cochran is only $27 for a monthly membership.”

Lilley is young and ambitious.

He says, “My vision for Hawkinsville Training Center is to make it a top facility for horse people to come and train their horses for the winter months.”

You can learn more about the Hawkinsville Training Center by checking out the website Harness Hawkinsville.