Driver, trainer, owner and announcer… There isn’t much Michael Cushing hasn’t done during his 23-year career in harness racing.

For at least the foreseeable future, the Farmington native won’t be doing any of those things as he recuperates from back surgery at Bangor’s Eastern Maine Medical Center after being catapulted from his sulky during a qualifying race at Bangor Raceway Wednesday evening.

The 39-year-old Cushing basically broke his back and had surgery on his spine and his tailbone after landing on his tailbone.

“They told me I was catapulted out forward about 12 feet in the air,” Cushing said. “I broke the T-12 in my spinal column and my L5 on the higher end of the tailbone.”

Cushing, who credited Doctor Joanna Swartzbaugh for his successful surgery, said he has been told he should make a full recovery and be able to return to harness racing.

“They tell me it depends on the individual and the pain, but best-case scenario, it could be a month and worst-case, it could be four,” he said. “They actually had me on my feet for a few seconds today.”

Cushing said he will likely remain hospitalized through Sunday or Monday.

The winner of more than 1,200 career races said his injury was not a result of the track conditions at Bangor Raceway, which have been maligned by some horsemen this spring due to several race day cancellations resulting from poor drainage and soggy surface conditions.

“Heath [Campbell] was on the outside of me with one pacer [Pembroke Chance] and he was leading out ahead of us,” Cushing explained. “His horse crossed over toward the rail and made a bad break on mine [J.D. Willy]. I went hard to the left and my right wheel came over his left wheel and I was catapulted out. I landed on my tailbone and I just felt the fluid in my spinal column rush right over my column and I could not feel my legs. I got feeling back later in the evening.”

No other driver and none of the horses were injured in the race, which featured five trotters and one pacer.

“I really don’t think this has anything to do with the track conditions. I think it was just a horse making a break and it just kind of made a bad step,” he added.

Through June 15, Cushing was ranked 15th among drivers at Scarborough Downs with $9,345 in purse winnings and five wins, three places (seconds) and five shows (thirds) in 25 starts. He and his wife Charlene train 19 horses and are part or full owners of six.

Cushing races at several tracks including Bangor Raceway.

From 2005 through 2007, Cushing was the track announcer at Scarborough Downs.

“He started out as being one of the people who would fill in for Hank Fenno, who was very ill and wasn’t able to call every race, and it just became a natural fit for him,” said current Scarborough Downs announcer Mike Sweeney. “He would still drive on stakes days, and I’d fill in for him.”

“Horsemen always mimic announcers and he was very sharp-witted,” Sweeney said. “He finally got a chance to see how well he could do compared to the other announcers. I think everyone kept waiting for him to fall on his face, but he never did.”

Cushing returned to driving this spring, saying he missed the competition too much.

Charlene Cushing is also a successful driver. She’s ranked 16th among Bangor Raceway drivers with one win, three shows and two places in 11 starts. She also has $5,122 in purse winnings through June 15.

Harness racing is in the Cushing genes as Mike’s father is standout driver Roderick L. Cushing and his uncle Ronald has more than 1,300 career victories.

Cushing had two of his horses already entered and qualified to race in two races at Scarborough Downs Thursday, but rather than have them scratched, friends of his stepped in for him and drove both horses to top-five finishes.

Shawn Gray drove Shurfine Nikki to a second-place finish in the sixth race and Shane Taggart, an usher at Cushing’s wedding, finished fifth on Cushing’s Sea Dog Time in the eighth race. Both were pace races.

Ironically, Gray’s finish on Shurfine Nikki was one of the few that wasn’t a first place as Gray won five of the 10 races at Scarborough that night. Scarborough Downs officials called Gray’s feat “one of the most impressive displays of driving ability we’ve witnessed this season” and the most by one driver in at least the last two seasons.

Saddling some hours

Destiny Hesketh has been back in the saddle again, and again and again and again.

Thanks to her love for riding horses, the Ellsworth teen is earning awards and prizes at a rate which most frequent flier club members would envy.

After having already received a $15 gift card to a tack shop for accumulating 100 riding hours on a horse, the 13-year-old Hesketh earned some more bonuses – another gift card plus an award and a commemorative jacket – from the American Quarter Horse Association for eclipsing the 250-hour mark.

“I hit that two months ago,” she said. “Right now I’m at 300-something. I’m going for 500 hours. That’s a $100 card from Drysdales Western Store.”

That shouldn’t take too long, since Hesketh’s last day of school was Friday and she plans on spending days and nights at the Double O Stables in Hancock, where her 5-year-old mare and American quarterhorse Maggie May is stabled.

“Oh yeah, I’ll get there in no time,” she said. “I’m going out there every day. I’ll be spending the night at the barn a lot, too.”

The member of Double O’s spur (riding) team got the idea to keep track of her hours from the AQHA Web site.

“We were talking about how it might be a good idea to keep track of how many hours we ride just for fun,” she explained. “I think we had to keep log sheets at the end of the year and we e-mailed the log sheets to their office.”

Horses have been a passion for Hesketh, who would like to become an equine chiropractor, ever since her first pony ride at the Fryeburg Fair when she was 3.

“Oh, she’s very serious about it,” quipped Steven Hesketh, Destiny’s father. “I bought a horse and I lost my daughter.”

aneff@bangordailynews.net

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