The U.S. Army closed its $8.6 million purchase of the Middleburg Training Center on Aug. 6, 2026. The 149-acre property is at 35355 Training Center Lane, near the village of St. Louis. The Army bought it to stable the 73 horses of The Old Guard's Caisson Detachment, the herd that carries service members to their graves at Arlington National Cemetery. The property has 11 barns, 220 stalls, 40 paddocks and a 7/8-mile training track. The caisson herd needs the stalls, paddocks and pasture. Reporting from the August town hall says it does not need the track.
Most of what happens at the property this fall follows from that. The barns now belong to a ceremonial unit, and the racing work is moving out to private farms around Hunt Country. The track at the center Paul Mellon built has no confirmed future.
A Property That Has Changed Hands Before
The training center has had several owners in 70 years, and each sale moved it a little further from where it started.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1956 | Paul Mellon builds the training center |
| 1975 | A group of local trainers buys it |
| 2006 | Businessman Randy Rouse buys it |
| 2016 | Rouse donates it to the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation |
| 2017 | Chuck Kuhn buys it from the foundation for $1.5 million |
| Aug. 6, 2026 | The U.S. Army closes on the purchase for $8.6 million |
The foundation sold because it couldn't keep running a training center. After buying it, Kuhn renovated the track, all 11 barns, and the stalls and paddocks, and he placed the land under a conservation easement. That work is part of why the Army chose it. Army officials told Military Times they looked at more than 100 properties before picking this one, citing its newer barns and room for more than 200 horses.
The center's racing history is well known locally. Hoist The Flag, the champion 2-year-old colt of 1970, trained there. So did Spectacular Bid, who won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness in 1979.
Why the Horse Community Could Not Match the Offer
The opposition organized early. On March 4, more than 100 horsemen and members of the equine community packed a standing-room-only meeting at Buchanan Hall in Upperville. The Piedmont Foxhounds Conservation Fund and the Virginia Equine Alliance asked attendees to suggest other sites for the caisson unit and to write to the Army, according to InsideNoVA. At that meeting, organizers estimated from the property's tax assessment that a competing offer would need to be in the $4 million to $5 million range. The Army's closing price was $8.6 million.
The petition circulated that spring explains what the horse community thought was at stake. It said the training center brings more than $7 million a year in economic benefit to the area. It also said the center was a major part of the Virginia-Certified Residency Program, which brought more than 800 out-of-state horses through the facility from 2017 to 2023. The petition also argued that no other facility in Loudoun or the surrounding counties is big enough to take in the displaced horses and horsemen.
FauquierNow reported on May 4 that the Virginia Equine Alliance had been unable to agree on purchase terms with Kuhn and that he had accepted the Army's offer. The alliance warned that losing the region's only year-round training venue would likely push some trainers out of state.
Where the Racing Work Is Going
The petition argued that no single facility could absorb the training center's horses, and so far that has held true. No replacement track has been named. Trainers are moving to private farms one at a time.
In early August, Country Zest reported that most of the center's horsemen had already moved to new locations in the Middleburg area and elsewhere. Chris Kolb, who has trained at the center since 1990, said he would move his operation to Gordonsdale Farm in The Plains. Neil Morris, who kept 20 racehorses in the Mellon Barn with a staff of eight, had bought a 220-acre farm in Delaplane and already moved another 20 horses there.
Kolb's comment the morning after the town hall summed up the mood of the tenants who were packing up:
"It hasn't really hit us yet and you feel like you'd like to blame somebody. But I don't blame the Army; they're trying to do the right thing for their animals, and you can't really say anything about Chuck Kuhn. He did what he felt like he had to do."
Back in March, horseman Sean Clancy predicted that trainer Madison Meyers would move her operation to Fair Hill in Maryland. We found no later report confirming where she went. The same goes for the rest of the more than 100 horses the center was boarding.
The Calendar From Here
The dates are close and spread out over a long stretch. According to an Army presentation at the August town hall, current tenants and their horses must be out by Oct. 31, 2026, and the Army takes possession the next day, Nov. 1. The Army's goal is to have the battalion operating at the center by June 2027 and to move the herd over the course of 2027 and 2028. Country Zest's Aug. 7 report gave a move-out date of Oct. 24 for the remaining tenants. We found no newer report settling the difference. The Army also plans to renovate many of the barns for the caisson horses, which are much larger than thoroughbreds.
That leaves the training center between uses for months, and possibly more than a year. Meanwhile the herd is still working elsewhere. The caisson horses had been kept at the 40-acre NOVA Equestrian Center in Aldie. Interim stables at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall became operational in December 2025, and major renovations to the historic Fort Myer stables are expected to finish in late 2027. The caisson detachment went back to limited funeral duty at Arlington the week of June 2, 2025, with a cap of two funerals a day and ten a week. That work stays at Arlington. The Middleburg property will be where the horses live and train, not where they perform ceremonies.
The Army was looking for a new home because of a 2022 internal review. It found the horses' facilities at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall and Fort Belvoir inadequate, with conditions that contributed to the deaths of two horses. Col. Jeff Kain, commander of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, said at the Aug. 6 town hall, "We needed a horse farm. The Middleburg Training Center is that farm."
What Has Been Said and What Has Been Decided
Most questions about the training center fall into one of two groups: commitments the Army has stated, and requests that are still open.
Stated by the Army at or after the August town hall:
- No fencing, no barracks and no heavy military equipment, and the site will not become a conventional military base
- The property's conservation easement will be honored
- Traffic impacts will be studied, though the reporting gives no forecast or route for horse transport
- Local job openings will be communicated to the community
Requested, still unresolved as of early October 2026:
- Shared use or a leaseback of the track and some barns. Jeb Hannum, executive director of the Virginia Equine Alliance, raised this at the town hall, noting the Army planned to keep only about 80 horses on a property built for more than 200. Rep. Suhas Subramanyam and Del. John McAuliff also urged the Army to consider it.
- Public tours. At the March meeting, an Army representative said the unit expected to have public tours if it came to Middleburg. By August, public access was still under legal review with no commitment.
- A community advisory group. The Army said it would consider forming one.
Maj. Gen. Antoinette Gant, who announced the closing, said further analysis would be needed to decide whether joint use is possible and that the Army was open to exploring it. Rappahannock News reported on Aug. 7 that the Army had no firm answer on joint use pending legal review. As of early October, we have found no later report of a decision. At the town hall, Middleburg Vice Mayor Chris Bernard acknowledged the differing opinions in the room and told Army officials, "I'm here to just say welcome."
So the barns and paddocks the caisson herd needs have a clear plan and a timeline running into 2028. The 7/8-mile track at the center Paul Mellon built in 1956 has neither. Whether racehorses ever train on it again depends on a legal review the Army has not finished.
A sale like this one, in which a conservation easement, a long tenant history and a buyer's very specific needs all shape what a property becomes, is the kind of transition Brett follows closely as an owner of an operating horse farm. If you own an equestrian property near Middleburg and are thinking about what its next chapter could look like, Bretton Molenaar is glad to talk it through. Let's Connect.
