Courtroom Cowboy : After Days of Knotty Cases, Lawyer Unwinds by Throwing Ropes at Steers

The gate is lifted. The steer bolts into the arena.

Ken Steelman jams his spurs into the sides of his buckskin quarter horse. Dundee, 1,300 pounds of explosive muscle, grunts hard and almost rears up as he hurtles from the starting gate.

Steelman stands in the stirrups, balanced, leaning slightly forward. With his right arm, he twirls the looped end of a rope above his head. His unsmiling face is set hard, his eyes never straying from the fleeing steer.

When the front legs of the horse are about even with the rear end of the steer, Steelman throws the loop.

If he has thrown correctly--if his intense concentration has held, if his aim is true, if he has made the right moves in precisely the right sequence in less than five seconds--the loop will fall from left to right around both horns and the steer will be his.

Three times on this hot September afternoon, in competition with 50 other riders at the Double D Roping Arena, a ramshackle ranch in the smoggy flatlands near Riverside, Steelman has missed and the steer has escaped.

Now on his fourth and last ride into the ring, Steelman sees everything--the points of the steer’s horns, the rope snaking out from his outstretched hand--with perfect, frozen clarity. But he can do no more now than wait for the loop to fall.

On most days, Steelman, 43, can be found in a more genteel arena.

No jeans, boots or horse there. He wears a suit and rides a Jaguar XJ6 on his way to compete in Orange County courtrooms, arguing big-money real estate fraud and finance cases as a trial lawyer.

“I love the challenge of law, problem-solving, being an advocate. The way I do law is very aggressive, very fast, very exciting.”

Steelman worked for several years as a prosecutor in the Orange County district attorney’s office before joining 10 years ago what is now the Irvine firm of Corbett & Steelman.

He enjoys his work in business and real estate litigation, but law is a world of controlled, cerebral competition that forces Steelman to keep a lot reined in. He needed a way to let it go, and he found it in rodeo roping.

“I found I had to be able to leave work behind. In roping, I find a release. It’s fast and physical and allows me to void my mind of everything that happens the rest of the week.”

So on most Saturday mornings, he leaves the Jaguar in the garage of his Irvine home, hitches a horse trailer to his V8-powered Chevy Suburban and heads for the hills.

At small, dusty practice arenas in the hills of San Juan Capistrano or Coto de Caza, Steelman joins a growing number of Orange County riders, most of them middle-aged men, who have taken up the sport of team roping.

“Twenty years ago, there’d be about three guys who’d come out for a morning of roping,” said Gilbert Aguirre, head of ranching operations for Rancho Mission Viejo.

“But in the last 10 years, a whole lot more have gotten into it. More people are into horses, but also these guys are older and can afford the time to do it after being busy for years trying to make a dollar.

“And, of course, everybody wants to be a cowboy.”

Steelman’s home and law office are filled with Western bric-a-brac: paintings, ranch tools, sculptures, replica guns, books with titles such as “Quotations of Louis L’Amour,” “Colt, An American Legend” and “Buckaroo.”

Steelman, who grew up the son of an electrician in Zearing, Iowa, population 600, says he never rode horses much as a kid, but “I remember always being interested, always feeling a part of the West.”

John Wayne was one of his early heroes.

“I was in the Sigma Chi fraternity at the University of Iowa. I wrote John Wayne a letter because I read he was also a member. He sent back an autographed picture,” Steelman says, obviously proud of the framed image on his living room wall.

“I admire his strength and honesty. I think he’s a model for the way people should be.”

He graduated from the University of Iowa on an ROTC scholarship and was assigned to an Army combat platoon at the height of the Vietnam War.

He won two Bronze Star Medals for valor under fire before coming home in 1969.

After getting his law degree in San Diego, Steelman settled in Orange County. One day 10 years ago, he and his wife, Patty, were driving down El Toro Road on the way to play tennis when they happened upon a roping arena and stopped to watch the riders.

“Here we were in our tennis whites with these cowboys. One guy came up and held up his newly bandaged hand where he’d lost three fingers and he says, ‘Want to learn how to rope?’ ”

Steelman became fast friends with some of the group and began to ride horses, helped herd cattle on local ranches and eventually began learning to rope.

“It took me three years to become a good roper. Now after 10 years, I’d say I’m very good.”

Although strictly an amateur, Steelman competes in several formal roping events a year throughout Southern California--and occasionally takes home small cash prizes called “jackpots.”

But Steelman says he most relishes the competitive excitement and the culture of roping in Orange County.

“I do it for the fun and the excitement, but also for the camaraderie. Ropers span the whole spectrum of completely different backgrounds. You don’t find pretentious individuals. You can rope with a bunch of guys for years and never know what anybody does for a living.

“It’s a sport that makes the person a common denominator. Nobody’s there for the financial stakes or there to be seen. Everyone is just there to rope.”

Steelman says he enjoys the cooperative spirit of the sport, something he sees less often in the adversarial world of law.

“Sure, you go out there to perform, and if you catch (rope the steer), you’re there, you’re in. But if you don’t, people are always there to help.”

Early on a brilliant, breezy September morning, about a dozen ropers gather for beer and doughnuts under a sycamore tree beside a fenced oval arena at Rancho Mission Viejo east of San Juan Capistrano.

They work at a wide range of jobs, including ranching and construction. They wear cowboy hats, big metal belt buckles and boots with spurs. Some have names like Angel, Harley, Gil, Cecil and Bucker. They talk about the government, horses, water, horses, high school football, horses, somebody’s new rich wife, and horses.

Steelman feels right at home.

“It’s just really easy being around these guys,” he says as he tightens the cinch on the saddle of his 8-year-old roping horse, Dundee.

Steelman and his frequent roping partner, Gary Campbell, 48, a San Juan Capistrano air-conditioning contractor, ride into the arena to make a run.

Team roping involves two riders, the header and the heeler. The technique, now a staple in rodeo competitions, originated on the range as a way to quickly capture a steer from the herd for branding or veterinary care.

The header and heeler position their horses at one end of the arena on either side of a gated chute holding the steer--the header on the steer’s left, the heeler on the right.

Each carries a rope made of a Dacron and nylon blend, about three-eighths of an inch thick, at least 30 feet long, with a loop a little less than two feet in diameter.

Steelman is a header. His is the first horse to take off in pursuit of the steer when it is released from the chute.

After he throws his rope loop, he “takes the jerk,” meaning he pulls up on the slack in the rope. Without looking at his saddle, he then “dallies,” wrapping the rope once around the saddle horn.

“If you look down before you dally, you’ll lose track of what the steer is doing, where it’s going, and you can lose your fingers,” Steelman says.

He then slows his horse and reins him hard to the left, using the bulk and strength of the horse to make the 550-pound steer change direction. This is called “shaping the steer” or getting it into position to be roped around the rear legs by the heeler.

Knocked off balance by the pull of the horse, the steer tends to lift its rear legs simultaneously. The heeler, coming up on the right side of the steer, throws his loop on the ground ahead of the steer’s rear hoofs. When the hoofs come down in the circle of rope, the heeler tightens the noose and the steer is caught.

A good roper doesn’t have to be young or an athlete. Steelman--6-foot-2, of medium build, ruddy-faced behind steel-rimmed glasses, is neither.

“Ken is not naturally athletic. I’m surprised actually at how good he’s gotten to be,” said his wife, Patty.

Steelman says one of the attractions of the sport is that he can pursue it through middle age and beyond.

“There are guys in their 70s doing this, so it’s a sport I can stick with.”

Steelman says roping skill depends on superb concentration, balance and eye-hand coordination. And a good horse.

Quarter horses, like Dundee, are best suited to the job. They are shorter than a thoroughbred to put the rider closer to the steer. They are heavier, making easier the job of dragging the steer. They are heavily muscled in the rear, permitting the burst of acceleration needed to catch the steer running from the chute. They are calmer and better able to handle the anxious moments of waiting in the gate before the steer is let loose.

Steelman’s horse is an object of great admiration on the Orange County roping circuit.

“That buckskin of his is as keen a thing as there is around,” says Jack Kent, a longtime roper from Yorba Linda. “He just doesn’t make a mistake.”

A good horse that has been trained for roping, as his was when he bought it, costs between $5,000 and $10,000, Steelman says.

Steelman and Campbell are a skilled team. World champions can snare a steer--front and back--in about four seconds. When they’re hot, Steelman and his partner can do it in eight or nine seconds.

But in this practice session at Rancho Mission Viejo, Steelman has been hanging back, not being aggressive enough, waiting too long before throwing his rope.

Cecil Stanger, 72, of Yorba Linda, a professional roper for 37 years, sits astride his horse, watching, shaking his head, laughing.

“Ain’t a man alive could miss that steer. I could rope better than that when I was 6 years old,” Stanger says.

He spits a load of chewing tobacco in the dust and waits for Steelman to ride over to consult him.

“You got to run up and rope him, Ken. Take your dally and then get the hell out of the hole.”

Steelman tries again but once again lays back too long before throwing his rope.

“Jesus, he’s just a . . . steer. He ain’t gonna bite you,” Stanger says.

Steelman regards Stanger and the other old hands at roping with affection. He seeks out their crusty criticism.

“It really helps to have the other guys caring about how you do,” he says.

Two weeks later at the roping competition near Riverside, Steelman again is plagued by the same hesitation that ruined his throws in practice.

Steelman remembers Stanger’s admonition. Although he has no chance to win on this, his fourth and last chance, he rides Dundee like a man possessed.

Less than a dozen yards out of the gate, his loop falls perfectly in place around the steer’s horns.

Dundee digs in his rear hoofs as Steelman reins him back and to the left, dragging the steer off balance. The heeler throws his loop and the steer is caught.

Afterward, Steelman is aglow as he rides past other riders, who praise his performance.

“I just decided to go for it.”

He pats his horse’s neck.

“Turned out to be a good day after all, Dundee.”