For many people, retirement provides a potential new wind of opportunity. For Cliff Coonfer, retirement provided an opportunity for he and his wife to start a Standardbred breeding operation.
Cliff, along with his wife Kathy, operate Dungannon Standardbreds, a breeding farm based in central Alberta. While the couple has bred many quarter horses over the years, they only recently broke into the harness racing industry.
“We thought this would be a unique experience to raise Standardbreds,” Cliff said. “Being that Kathy likes the babies so much, we thought that’s a good thing we could do is get into the industry. She can have her babies and then of course we’d have to sell them, which we did. So yeah, that’s how it all began.”
Cliff and Kathy were first introduced to harness racing back in 2007. They had gone down to Stampede Park in Calgary to watch harness racing, but soon after Stampede Park closed its doors for good. That roadblock did not stop Cliff and Kathy from entering the sport.
With as family-run of an operation as Dungannon has, one of the advantages for Cliff is how hands-on of a role he can play in the development and training of his horses. The amount of handling and care along with the emotional investment he placed into his horses caused Cliff to even expand his role in the industry.
“My favourite part is of course jogging,” Cliff said. “You just feel so alive. Everything seems to be at peace. You look over at the mountains. I decided to get my groom's license because I was spending a lot of time in the barns, with the people and the horses. And I thought maybe I should get my groom's license so then I had a little bit of liability with me. I guess it’s kind of just to say ‘I’m a groom.’”
Cliff and Kathy have bred many Standardbreds since starting their farm, including O'Brien Award finalist Mateo, a provincial champion in Alberta with more than $300,000 earned and most recently racing in U.S. That horse holds a special place in Cliff's heart due to the unique challenges the pacer presented.
“My favourite is Mateo. When he was born he was blind in his left eye and it was just a unique experience with him; working around him. We were trying to take his condition into reality or trying to work with him and say ‘Okay, if I was blind in this eye...’ I always had my hand on him to let him know where I was, but he had a great personality. He was my fave for sure.”
Many people will spend a lifetime trying to find success in harness racing while many others will eventually fatigue and stop trying. Within a couple years of their operation, Cliff and Kathy have in retirement managed to breed horses that have raced at the top levels in Western Canada as well as all over North America.
“We feel very, very fortunate,” Cliff said. “We watch all of our babies race and everybody else’s at that track. And being very fortunate, we’ve raced in Alberta, B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and even some of them have gone down to the states too to Cal-Expo, Running Aces in Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Maryland. So we feel pretty fortunate that our horses are able to race not only as two- or three-year-olds but they have a longevity as well.”
To view the full interview courtesy of Horse Racing Alberta, click the play button below.