Top class pacing mare Dabarndawgswatchin, a multiple Ontario Sires Stakes winner as a youngster and regular among the Preferred distaff ranks at Woodbine Mohawk Park in recent years, has been retired from racing and will start her broodmare career.
A seven-year-old daughter of Hes Watching, Dabarndawgswatchin retires from racing with a record reading 26-26-18 from 115 starts and earnings totalling $768,540 for owners and breeders Julie Ferguson of Greely, Ont., and Lloyd Stone of Portland, Ont. Dabarndawgswatchin will be bred to Cattlewash and live alongside her dam, Addison Bay. Both Hes Watching and Addison Bay were pupils of trainer David Menary back in 2014, and little did anyone know that Dabarndawgswatchin would emanate from a common greeting between a couple of horsemen and these pacing stablemates.
"The name came from Ted McDonald [Julie's husband] meeting Dave years ago," Ferguson told Trot Insider. "We were both stabled on a farm. Dave was working there, and Ted said, 'I'd go to the barn in the morning, and Dave would be there. I'd go back at lunch, and Dave would be there. I'd go to races, he'd be there. I'd come home from the races, he'd be there.' So he said, 'What are you, the barn dog?' So they called each other 'the barn dog' for years, and that's where it came from."
Ferguson noted that Dabarndawgswatchin's first Ontario Sires Stakes Gold win on July 23, 2021 — defeating eventual O'Brien Award winner Scarlett Hanover — will always be one of her favourite on-track memories.
In addition to winning a pair of OSS Gold divisions as a three-year-old, Dabarndawgswatchin was a 10-time Preferred/Open winner at Mohawk during her aged campaign and took her mark of 1:49 flat as a five-year-old while defeating the likes of O'Brien Award winners Sylvia Hanover and So Much More. She was trained by Ted McDonald and Ron MacDonald during her freshman season before joining the David Menary stable.
In a social media post from the National Capital Region Harness Horse Association, Ferguson described her memories with the mare as "priceless."
The connections would like to thank Menary and his team for their hard work and dedication in addition to recognizing Shawna Henderson, who developed a special bond with Dabarndawgswatchin while paddocking her for the majority of her career. They would also like to thank the mare's drivers, including her regulars Louis-Philippe Roy, Jody Jamieson and Trevor Henry, as well as the fans that have supported and loved her.
(Standardbred Canada; with files from NCRHHA)