OFF THE RECORD

Houston’s Lawyer/Equestrians: Dressage/English Riders

By Ann D. Zeigler

X Halt Salute. Free walk on long rein. Running on the forehand. Working trot rising. Prix St. George.
In the September-October 2003 issue, The Houston Lawyer featured lawyers who are hunter-jumper-eventers—the wild adventurers of horse riding. Now, it’s equal time for the bar’s dressage/English riders—masters of intricate patterns and specialized gaits.
I spoke recently with several lawyer/ dressage riders at Houston’s Solstice Farms. Two were willing to talk on the record to Off the Record.
Diane McManus, a supervising attorney at Lone Star Legal Aid, rode a horse for the first time when she was 38. Since she didn’t know anyone who owned a horse, she looked up riding stables in the phone book, called one and signed up for a lesson. All of the students in her first lesson were lawyers, although the others had been taking lessons for a while. Pretty soon it was group lessons twice a week, then three times a week, then private lessons. After Diane paid off her car, she used the money in her budget to buy the other kind of horse-power. Now she owns and rides two horses, Moon and Willie.
In English riding, the show judge scores the rider’s control of the horse in various intricate patterns of walk/ trot/canter in specific measured patterns. The same few gaits are woven into more and more intricate and demanding patterns and steps as the horse and rider move up through the levels of training and competition. A very few make it to career level competition—but we’re talking about people who already have a career in the law. The horse/rider pair is competing against itself as well as against the others in that class. The judge also scores the horse’s conformation-—size, shape and movement compared to a mythical perfect horse of that breed. Since Moon had serious physical issues earlier in his life, he could never be a competitive show horse. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be a great lesson and training horse for Diane.
Diane bought Willie to ride in shows. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter he broke a leg and had to be taken to Texas A&M University’s veterinary school for emergency surgery. Willie recovered and has gone on to a show career with Diane.
“Lawyers live in their heads,” says Diane. “Riding dressage is very physical, very outside yourself. It also focuses on detail and precision, like lawyering.”
Ceil Price, an in-house consulting environmental lawyer with Shell Oil Products US, has been riding for years. She joins Diane in touting the focus and precision of dressage riding as a source of sanity and perspective. Ceil does both dressage and eventing. She turns to dressage riding to hone her “meditation” skills. Ceil just bought a young horse and is in the early stages of training, which she says demands much more patience than riding the horses she has already trained through the intermediate levels.
Ceil and Diane agree that dressage riding is ongoing life-skills training. And it is a skill that they can develop throughout their lives.
Now, let’s hear from the rodeo and polo lawyers!

Ann Zeigler is a bankruptcy lawyer at Hughes, Watters & Askanase, LLP. She is an associate editor of The Houston Lawyer.

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