She needs no introduction at Truro Raceway. Clare MacDonald opened the 2023 meet with a training/driving victory, winning with Woodmere Clara on May 7. Over her career, the Antigonish, N.S. native has earned her place in harness racing history, becoming the winningest active female driver in North America. She reached the 1,500-win mark at Truro Raceway on July 13, 2021 with trotter Mr Finlay Ridge.
Truro Raceway will celebrate her storied career this Sunday, Sept. 10 during its race card dubbed “Clare MacDonald Day,” a fundraising event in support of the Alzheimer’s Society of Nova Scotia.
MacDonald will be signing autographs and doing meet and greets with fans from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. There will be a commemorative t-shirt designed after her racing colours available for sale, as well as a special poster available for signing. A silent auction in the grandstand, from 12 noon to 3 p.m., will also be part of the festivities and all of the races on the day are sponsored, with proceeds from everything going to the Alzheimer’s Society.
MacDonald's first pari-mutuel drive was in 1978 at Sackville Downs with West River Norman.
“He was a little free-legged horse who liked to front run," recalled MacDonald. "I sent him off the front and made a green rookie mistake, and invented the passing lane at the same time, because I drifted off the rail and Edgar ‘Sparky’ Clarke came up the inside and won.”
A week later, she drove Dellmors Chief to her first victory.
“And I won my next one with the same horse,” she noted.
MacDonald’s 1,000th driving win was with West River Redwing at Summerside Raceway in 2007. In 1994, she was in the sulky behind the first Maritime-bred trotter to break the 2:00 barrier on a Maritime track: West River Exotic in a track record 1:59.4h Atlantic Sires Stakes victory at Exhibition Park Raceway. The “West River” prefix originated with her father, Ed Haley, who established the West River Stock Farm near Antigonish, N.S. over 60 years ago.
MacDonald was raised in the sport.
“I was treated with respect because of who I was,” she said. “I was always tagging along at all the tracks, so I knew everybody and they knew me. I’d been warming up horses since I was probably 11 or 12, race days, on the track; doing a lot of training at home.”
She always wanted to drive professionally, but it took on added importance after losing her brother Rinaldo “Neldie” Haley in a 1969 car accident.
“He was leading driver at Truro Raceway and he was only 22, but he’d been leading driver there the last two years and was leading at the time of his death.”
MacDonald became a licensed driver after a USTA rule amendment that lowered the age limit from 18 to 16.
“I turned 16 in December 1977 and I wrote my test a couple of days after that. I was driving by March,” said MacDonald.
USTA district director Frank Daniels returned from a meeting in Ohio to deliver the positive news himself in the Truro Raceway paddock.
Ken and Clare MacDonald began running West River Stock Farm around 1980-81. In 1993, Clare had her first six-figure season on the track ($121,183; 45 wins from 157 drives). She won a 1993 Gold Cup and Saucer Trial with Kilkerran Ingle (p, 5, 1:54.4h; $125,787), later guiding him to a show finish in the final and winning Truro Raceway’s Exhibition Cup in a 1:54.4 track record.
With 1,528 wins from 8,681 career starts and $4,962,889 in earnings as a driver, MacDonald continues to make history at Truro Raceway.
“I guess I’m one of the few that's doing it as a living,” she said. “A lot of [women] are driving as a hobby and only have a few drives a year. I don't have near the numbers that I used to have, but still…If you look, I’ve stayed ultra-consistent for 40 years; my driving average hovers around the .300 mark.”
(With files from Truro Raceway)