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Arizona she decided she did not want to live in the heat, so she followed
up on a couple of offers from Los Angeles firms, and joined O’Melveny &
Myers, “which is probably the biggest firm in L.A.”
The fun thing about being an entertainment lawyer, says Leigh, is the
business part of it, “what’s a great deal, how you define the back end, who
is the best distributer; it is really a partnership with a lot of layers of detail
and figuring out what the best thing is for your client in the long run. It’s
fun.” As fun as it is, she says it’s also something that is “great to get away
from. It is so all consuming that polo has been my escape. I get out on the
polo field and it’s about the game and the common bond. People from all
different walks of life, doing completely different things, united on the
field, and most all are truly passionate about the sport. It requires so much
money, time, energy, skill, and danger to play that unless you are really
passionate about it, people give it up very quickly.”
After Leigh moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, her sister suggested
she give polo a try, “so I leased a horse, and within six months I had a
truck, a trailer, and six horses. I was completely hooked; it’s an addiction.”
Zero-Goal Player
Today, Leigh is ranked as a zero-goal player. She explains, “There are
one-goal professionals who either get paid to play or other people pay
their expenses. You actually want to be under-rated. The lower you’re
rated vis-à-vis your skill level, the more valuable you are to your team. If
your ego mandates that you be rated a one or a two but you’re actually a
zero, nobody is going to want to play with you – but you can brag about
your rating. I haven’t reached the level of playing in the twenty-goal and
I probably won’t, but Santa Barbara has a fantastic twelve-goal and eight-
goal league,” both of which she will be playing in this summer and fall.
Leigh explains, “for most of the polo up here [in Santa Barbara], you
hire professionals to play with you which is just unlike any other sport,”
adding that the only other sport where you’re playing with experts is
maybe boating, where one will hire expert sailors. “There isn’t any other
sport where you and a professional play together. Even if you own the
Lakers, you’re not out playing with them. That is what polo is, you’re
actually playing with people that are much better than you, and so you’re
never losing the opportunity to get better and improve and learn from
them. There is nothing like it.
“Women’s polo is changing; it used to be sort of brutal.” Similarly,
Leigh notes, “the first group of women ahead of me in the entertainment
world felt the need to be meaner, rougher and tougher than any guy and
I think women have learned – certainly I have – that using feminine
attributes is much more effective. I think women can be feminine and
strong and competitive. My sister, my daughter, and I all love competition.
I find it really invigorating. Polo is a team sport, and most adults don’t
get to play a team sport. It’s actually what I like about entertainment
law – you have your client, the manager, the agent, and you’re a team and
plotting and scheming together.”
On the field, Leigh says, “I’ve always liked to play the number four
defense [position]. Being a lawyer, I have a pessimistic personality. I have a
slight expectation that things are going to go wrong, so I like to sit in the
back and wait for things to go wrong and swoop in. But the higher level of
polo you play, the more likely it is you’re going to be playing in the front
because you can’t hit the way the people in the back can hit and they can
catch up with anyone. So I’ve essentially had to learn a whole new game.
Now I usually play position one, sometimes two, more on the offense.”
As of the printing of this article, Leigh reports the team she will be
playing with this season is composed of: Dawn Jones playing position
two, Luis Echezarreta in position three, and Joseph Stuart in position four.
“We have not named the team yet. I normally play for Film Finances and
Dawn normally plays for San Saba,” says Leigh.
Leigh explains that something relatively new to polo is women
patrons, women who are financing all or part of a team. Leigh says she
does it to some degree, and names a few more, including: Dawn Jones,
wife of actor Tommy Lee Jones; Sara Rotman, owner and creative director
of MODCo (My Own Damn Company), a creative branding agency;
Jenny Luttrell out of Colorado, patron of the Cotterel Polo Team; Melissa
Ganzi with Audi; and Gillian Johnston, patron of the Coca-Cola Polo
Team. “Women tend to be so skilled in horsemanship, they grew up
riding, they play polo very effectively and they’ve always been involved in
the sport as trainers and grooms. Now we’re starting to get women who
are very successful in business, who are competitive and willing to spend
the money and play a rough sport with the boys.”
Rough Sport
Leigh is conscious about safety, “I wear safety goggles, a face mask, and
a vest – which everyone makes fun of. It is the kind of thing cross country
eventing riders wear, and it’s saved me.” Then there are gloves, a mouth
guard, elbow pads, and extra pads for her ankles, and a very sturdy pair of
boots that are really tough and stiff to protect her legs because, as Leigh
explains, one of the big things in polo is what is called “riding off,” where
you literally move the other person and shove them over. Then knee pads
to protect players for the same reason as you bang into someone on a 1,500
a passion for Polo