Staff Writer 

Four years ago, 17-year-old Cindy Flaherty thought she would never be able to have her own horse. 

“My dad always hated horses,” she said. “He would say ‘We’ll never have horses on this farm.’”

Now, the Flaherty family farm on Scottow Hill Road is home to seven standardbred racehorses, a breed that Jill Flaherty, Cindy Flaherty’s mother, said she never thought she would even ride, never mind show a horse that wasn’t specifically bred for it. 

“I thought standardbreds were insane,” she said. “I grew up showing horses but never a standardbred.”

Despite her parents’ preconceptions about standardbreds and horses in general, Cindy Flaherty said she grew up “a horse-crazy kid,” and began working at a local horse barn in summer 2005. Cindy Flaherty said she waived a salary for a more rewarding form of reimbursement for her help at the barn. 

“I worked for my lessons,” she said. “I didn’t want money, I mostly did it for fun. I wasn’t even that good of a rider.”

Inspired by his daughter’s love of horses, Cindy Flaherty said her father went and looked at an old standardbred racehorse a friend of his was trying to sell. 

“[The standardbred] had been basically saved from the slaughterhouse,” Cindy Flaherty said. “He raced for nine years, which is a long time. He was skin and bones and couldn’t race anymore, but [her father’s friend] had taken care of him and got him healthy again.”

Jill Flaherty said she accompanied her husband to look at the horse a second time, much to her surprise.

“Standardbreds have a really bad reputation,” she said. “I went thinking ‘I’m not getting my daughter a crazy standardbred,’ and I couldn’t believe my husband was actually interested in a horse. Then I saw [the horse’s] eyes and it was all over.”

Cindy Flaherty’s parents introduced her to “SomeKindaPill” – the horse’s registered racing name – who first seemed apprehensive about being converted from a harness racer to a “pasture pet,” she said.

“He’s a weird horse, really abnormal,” she said. “He was really nervous, not spooky, just nervous. I raised my leg as if I was going to get on him and he jumped away, that kind of thing.”

As a favor for “SomeKindaPill’s” owner, Cindy Flaherty spent the rest of the summer calming the horse’s nerves by practicing walking and lunging maneuvers. Slowly, she said “SomeKindaPill” relaxed enough to let her ride him, although the pair still had a lot to learn about each other. 

“Training him took a lot of trial and error. Most people have a professional rider to saddle train a horse, but I just learned on my own. Really, we kind of learned together,” she said. “At first, I found out that he doesn’t like side reins and he would always pull really hard on his bit.”

Several standardbred owners suggested she use a harsher bit in order to curb the horse’s pulling habit, but she said it only made the problem worse.

“He has the deadest mouth ever,” she said. “So I went the other way and started using a bit that was totally rubber. It was so much better.”

By the time Cindy Flaherty had saddle-trained the horse, “SomeKindaPill” came to the Flaherty family farm for good. 

“I thought I was just going to help train him, then I end up getting him for Christmas,” she said. 

For the next few weeks, when Cindy Flaherty wasn’t in the field, she was generating a long list of new names for him. Ultimately, she decided “SomeKindaPill” would be known as “Cisco,” a name her mother said made more sense than her daughter may have realized at the time. 

“Her sister is Catie with a ‘C,’ we have a horse named Cilver and a cat named Cymba,” she said. “When I was 12, I got my first horse, we got Cisco when Cindy was 12 and now my other daughter, who’s 12, has a horse. We’ve got some themes in this family we’re not even really aware of.” 

Just a month after bringing Cisco to the Flaherty farm, Cindy Flaherty combined her new found horse handling abilities with her mother’s background in formal horse showing and brought Cisco to his first standardbred horse show in January 2005. He received first in show, Cindy Flaherty said. 

“I never expected to be showing a trail horse but there is something about standardbreds,” Jill Flaherty said. “[Cisco] raced for nine years, he’s used to crowds and cheering so he doesn’t spook. They’ve seen it, they’ve been there.”

Cisco may have nerves of steel, but Cindy Flaherty said it takes a lot of practice to prepare a racehorse for a formal show. 

“[Racehorses] use opposite muscles,” she said. “When they race their heads are up so they can see where they’re going but at a show you want their nose pointed down.”

Teaching a horse to use the correct muscles takes a little incentive, Cindy Flaherty said. 

“I put a carrot between his ankles so he has to bend down, which stretches out his neck,” she said. “A lot of what we do is jumping too, so we work with poles to teach him to keep his feet up.”

Cisco isn’t the only one learning how to hold a pose; Cindy Flaherty said she sometimes has to stand with the horse for up to an hour without moving while judges assess their competitors.

“You have to know where to stand, where the judge is and where the horse is standing,” she said. “Sometimes I think ‘This is so boring, what is the point of this?’”

Together, the Flaherty family and their standardbred horses have attended more than two dozen horse shows and demonstrations throughout the state and as far away as New Jersey, although Cindy Flaherty said one event in Bangor in 2006 was particularly emotional for her and Cisco.

She said an old man approached them following a demonstration.

“He stared at Cisco and asked ‘Is that SomeKindaPill?’” Cindy Flaherty said. “Turns out he was the original owner, he raised [the horse.] He held [the horse’s] head in his hands and said ‘We thought you were dead, old man.’”

“There wasn’t a dry eye in the stable,” Jill Flaherty said.