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Harvard student dies after horse riding accident

E-mail|Link October 7, 2009 11:18 PM

By Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent

Ariel Shaker began riding horses when she was 8. Thirteen years later, the Harvard University senior had dreams of one day running her own stable.

Ariel Shaker

But Wednesday night, Shaker died of injuries she suffered doing what she loved: riding a horse.

‘‘Ariel was hoping she could be involved with horses for the rest of her life,’’ her father, Douglas Shaker, said Wednesday night from the family’s home in Palo Alto, Calif. ‘‘She was athletic, competitive, intelligent, articulate, sociable. She was exceptional in a lot of ways.’’

The accident occurred after Shaker had traveled with two teammates to Ipswich to exercise horses for Harvard’s polo team. She had made the team a month earlier.

But something quickly went wrong during a ride. The horse Shaker was riding bucked and fell, landing on her.

‘‘I’m 100 percent positive there was no lollygagging or clowning around. ... It’s just a complete freak mystery,’’ said her coach, Crocker Snow of Ipswich, director of the Murrow Center at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. ‘‘There are some unpredictable horses, and this wasn’t one. And there are some riders who are in over their head, and she wasn’t one.’’

Shaker was taken to Boston Medical Center, where doctors pronounced her dead at 9:42 Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, a group of Shaker’s best friends and roommates gathered in Cabot House at Harvard, where Shaker lived, playing music, singing, and remembering their friend. Between tears and laughter, they said one thing trumped her love of horses — her love of people.

‘‘I’ve never met anyone who cared so much about the people around her,’’ said senior Lihlani Skipper.

The group recalled Shaker’s weekly routine of baking bread and inviting everyone to meet in the Cabot common room for fresh bread and togetherness.

‘‘Ariel loved people, and she loved bringing us together,’’ said Anne Washburn, a senior. ‘‘She brought us together when she was here and now she’s bringing us together when she’s not.’’

Shaker was in Harvard’s Visual and Environmental Studies program.

Three weeks ago, she was quoted on a Harvard website as saying, ‘‘The world we live in is a beautiful, fun-filled, well-equipped planet, and I want to make sure it stays that way both for the rest of my life and for future generations!’’

The major gave Shaker an outlet for her creativity, according to Washburn.

‘‘Her art mimicked the size of her personality and how much she cared,’’ Washburn said, noting Shaker drew, painted, carved and sculpted. ‘‘It was big and it was alive and it was vibrant. And it all came through really clearly.’’

The Harvard community will gather to remember Shaker at an 11 a.m. memorial service Friday at the Harvard Memorial Church.

‘‘She touched so many lives,’’ Washburn said. ‘‘There is a hole that will never be filled.’’