South Strafford
“She was somebody who experienced and participated in life, rather than being an observer,” said Rachel Dow, the second of Sasha and Richard Dow’s three daughters. “If there was something she wanted to do, she would sort of figure out what was involved and go out and do it.”
Along with her new equestrian lifestyle came myriad bruises and broken bones, which worried her family.
“At some point we said, ‘Mom, we don’t want you to die,’ and she said, ‘If I die, at least you know I was doing what I loved,’” Rachel recalled. “Eventually, we kind of had to let go and let her do what she wanted.”
Dow, who died on Aug. 23, 2016, at 75, was a Detroit native, and daughter of a car dealer.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing and a master’s degree in library science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She and Richard Dow were married in 1968. They later separated for a time, during which she raised their children in Ann Arbor.
After they reunited, Dow retired from her beloved job as head librarian at University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and moved with Richard to Sharon, where he had bought a horse farm.
She was “a little irritated” about ending her career and moving to the Upper Valley, said her son-in-law Darin Knaus, who is married to Dow’s youngest daughter, Rose. The Knauses live with their children in Lyme.
A third daughter, Sarah Quade, lives in Virginia.
Yet the Upper Valley was where she really came into her own, getting involved in the community and developing the closest friendships she’d ever had, Rachel said. “It’s really awesome because there were hard points in her life, but she … got to the best point later in life.”
In Michigan, she had focused on her daughters, intent on giving them the best childhood possible, Rachel said. There were music and ballet lessons and adventures — camping trips and drives across the country to see national parks, Sunday outings with a community sailing group.
“I don’t really know how she managed it,” she said. “We were all on the go as kids.”
After her daughters were grown, it was her time to do what she wanted, Rachel said. “She really wanted to have a full life and not be one of those moms who was trying to live though her children.”
The Dows’ home in Sharon included an indoor riding arena and a large barn, which Richard Dow, former chairman of surgery at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, planned to use to work on his vintage race cars and tractors, Rachel said. But Sasha Dow had a different idea.
She started with one horse and eventually began boarding and breeding the animals. She built an outdoor riding ring, took riding lessons and rode in parades and competitions, mainly in dressage, and the farm was abuzz with trainers and riders, clinics and lessons.
“She just loved it,” said Rachel, who helped her at riding shows. “Those animals were her passion.”
Dow doted on them, ensuring they had the proper blankets for every weather situation and the right food, she said.
The family jokes that each of her coats was perpetually stocked with horse treats. And her love of helping other people access things otherwise out of reach led to visits to an area nursing home with her donkey, Gabby.
While Dow’s family had owned some horses when she was young, she hadn’t ridden as an adult, and competing was new to her. Even so, she had a natural ease with them, said Mollie Bachner, a friend of Dow’s who competes professionally in dressage.
As a rider, Dow was “more than fair” with her horses and never lost her temper, Bachner said. “Riding is a process. There is no mastery, so you really have to learn to love the process.”
The horses she competed on included Unico, the Lusitano stallion whom she referred to as her “soul mate.”
She had great poise on a horse and was “incredibly brave” as a rider, her friend and fellow equestrian Donna Alvarenga said. Stallions have “a lot of testosterone” and are difficult to ride.
Despite her persistent efforts, Dow was unable to earn a bronze medal, awarded by the United States Dressage Federation to riders who achieve certain scores in riding events.
She struggled to ride as well in competition as she did at home, where Unico was more relaxed, and they encouraged her to geld him so he would be easier to handle, Rachel said, but she wouldn’t think of it. The challenge of riding him was what made it so exciting, “and he was just so beautiful.”
At shows, people would comment on the horse’s coat and ask what she put on it. With a chuckle, Rachel recalled Dow’s response: “That’s stallion sheen. You can’t buy that.”
Her passion for horses, and apparent fearlessness, led to unforeseen adventures for her and the people in her life.
Going anywhere with Dow was exciting, said Bachner, a former Norwich resident who now lives in Burlington. “You never knew what would happen.”
On an icy winter day the two friends were driving from Strafford to Sharon to a riding lesson. Partway up a hill, the trailer came unhitched from Dow’s vehicle.
Dow wanted to take Unico out while they reattached the trailer, a suggestion Bachner vetoed. “The horse was wild.”
Eventually, they chocked the wheels on the trailer to prevent it from moving, backed up the truck, reconnected the trailer and went on their way.
“That was the scariest thing that ever happened to me,” Bachner said earlier this month. But Dow had simply said, “That was exciting.”
Not all of the journeys were physical. Upon meeting Dow, Strafford resident Martha Manheim invited her to join a book club she belongs to.
“She was quiet, but she kept feeding us good books,” including novels that took them into new territory, said Manheim, 92.
She and Dow had each taken Russian language classes at the University of Michigan, and they bonded over their love of Russian literature. “Sasha,” the name Dow gave herself, was inspired by the genre.
They both favored “the 19th century stuff,” she said. “You don’t survive it easily.”
Though she had never ridden, Dow’s love for horses was “just wonderful for me,” said Manheim, who, at her friend’s urging, read The Byerley Turk, the True Story of the First Thoroughbred, by Jeremy James. “I understood what it felt like to be a horse when I read that book.”
In 2011, after deciding to downsize, the Dows moved to South Strafford.
Their Sharon farm was bought by someone who lived out of town and eventually sold to High Horses, a nonprofit offering therapeutic riding programs.
“She would have really liked that,” Knaus said. “I think everyone in the family is really happy.”
Dow named the South Strafford property Round About Farm, because she felt like she’d finally found the place she was supposed to be after all her life, Rachel said. There, she stopped boarding horses and focused instead on her own animals and breeding her Lusitano stallions.
A basketball court served as the foundation for a post and beam barn, and there were other amenities, but missing was an indoor space for winter riding and training young horses, a dream of hers, Rachel said.
She hired the person who’d built the barn to construct a round pen, but before it was completed Dow started having health problems.
Early in 2015, doctors found cancer in her kidney and bladder, and she had to have her kidney removed. But she continued riding.
That spring she and her friends spent a “magical weekend” at a horse show in Marshfield, Mass., said Alvarenga, who lives in Enfield. “Sasha said that was the best weekend of her life because she got to take her horse to a major horse show.”
They spent the days laughing, sharing meals and encouraging one another’s horses, Alvarenga said. “She just came alive.”
By fall, the cancer had metastasized to her lungs and liver.
Dow was devastated, largely because it meant she would be unable to ride, Rachel said. She continued with the treatments her doctors said might buy her more time, in order to pursue the medal.
Last winter, the pen was still under construction, but “we really wanted to get it done,” Rachel said, choking up. Rachel and Richard Dow did a lot of the finishing work, and the roof was finished in January.
“She had a few good rides in there,” she said.
“I think most people would describe her as kind and giving and with an open heart,” said Alvarenga, and Dow approached dying as she had everything else in life, “lovingly and graciously,” ensuring that everyone in her family was ready to let her go, and that her horses had homes.
When it came to letting go of her horses, giving up Unico was the worst.
“She just agonized over what to do with him,” Rachel said. Always supportive of young riders, she thought about what an opportunity it would be for one of her young friends to have this “amazing horse.”
The white stallion went to Bachner, who, by agreement, had him gelded.
Dow didn’t really want that to happen, but it was the best opportunity for him, Rachel said. “He’s doing really well with Mollie.”
Oceano, the Lusitano that was her first dressage horse, went to Alvarenga, with the understanding that she would either keep him or make the best decision for him, the Emfield resident said.
As her illness progressed, Dow saved her energy for riding.
Toward the end, she was dizzy and sick, but after dismounting, she would say, “I feel better because I rode,” Alvarenga recalled. “Everything for her was cured by horses.”
Aimee Caruso can be reached at acaruso@vnews.com or 603-727-3210.