A gentle sendoff for Dan and Shaq

BEDFORD — This was, Kay Waff admitted, a new experience for her.

“I’ve never done an equine funeral before,” said Waff, an ordained deacon at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bedford. “Just some canine funerals.”

It was all new to me, too. Not only had I never attended a final ceremony honoring a horse (and also, in this case, a mule), but I’d never been to a funeral where a horse was one of the mourners.

But it only made sense — Cody, an aging bay afflicted with blindness and thyroid problems, was close to the deceased, Dan the mule and Shaq the horse. Wearing a green and gray cloth over his eyes, he stood respectively for awhile as Waff (adorned in the black and white robe of her office) proceeded with the ceremony, then he bent over and began grazing.

Cody was joined by perhaps a dozen humans who stood out in a field last Saturday afternoon under late-spring sunshine. A table behind Waff contained photographs of Dan and Shaq and a vase of spring flowers.

For these were not ordinary equines, but veterans of the Astride With Pride riding program on the farm of Stormie Shelton-Hazen and her husband Bob off Bell Town Road. They were, I discovered, members of an elite group.

“Only one out of 12 horses that we look at qualify for the program,” said Stormie Shelton-Hazen, the director. “It really takes a special horse.”

Or mule. If nothing else, Dan did his part to dispel all the unpleasant stereotypes about his species.

“He wasn’t stubborn, and he wasn’t disagreeable,” Shelton-Hazen said. “He fit in beautifully here.”

What he was, was big.

“Dan was donated to us,” said Shelton-Hazen, “and when I went over there to pick him up and saw him for the first time, I thought, ‘What have I done?’”

Dan and Shaq died recently within four days of each other, both from lingering illnesses.

“The one thing Dan loved more than anything else in the world was vanilla wafers,” Shelton-Hazen said. “When I brought him some there at the end and he wouldn’t eat them, I knew he wasn’t going to make it.”

This was not, of course, an open-casket ceremony. Equine funerals are almost always done post-burial. And most of those in attendance on Saturday, like Nancy Leighton, were Astride With Pride volunteers.

“I moved to Bedford County when I retired,” Leighton said, “and heard about this place and decided to be a part of it. I’ve always loved horses, and I love what this does for the clients.”

Among other things, riding improves balance, coordination and muscle memory.

“I worked with some women with MS,” added Kay Waff, herself a former Astride With Pride volunteer, “and they told me that riding made them feel better than anything else they did, even swimming. It had to do with the warmth of the horse’s body and the gentle movement.”

As for the horses, gentleness and steadiness are not options, but necessities. Astride With Pride’s clients bring with them assorted mental and physical problems, most of which would be aggravated by an overly rambunctious mount.

Along with several prayers (one written by Albert Schweitzer), Waff read a story about Buffalo Bill Cody and his favorite horse, Charlie Almost Human.

Charlie was part of Cody’s Wild West Show and died on the return voyage from a trip to England. At Cody’s orders, he lay in state that day, then was wrapped in an American flag and buried at sea as the ship’s cannon fired a final salute.

Shelton-Hazen could relate — the recent demise of two longtime members of her team means that she now needs to audition more horses. There is no shortage, however, of people wanting to take advantage of the program.

“It’s all based on how many volunteers and horses we can find,” Shelton-Hazen said.

Astride With Pride is volunteer-intense, because many clients need at least three volunteers surrounding the horse as it traverses a large fenced-in ring.

At least the farm still has Cody, the horse. He just stood there when the ceremony was over, as if trying to make sense of it all. And I couldn’t tell with the cloth over his eyes, but I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a tear.