Daily Diary

They shoot lawyers, don't they?

Posted 3/04/2007 by The Daily Diary

For the purposes of this slightly forced post, elite racehorses and City lawyers have plenty in common. Highly-strung thoroughbreds that respond in different measures to carrot and stick, effortlessly vaulting hurdles – hedge-based or regulatory – only for a fat bloke on the sidelines to swan off with all the winnings if they happen to finish first.

And now there is Boutrous – a rising star of the US racing scene, named after Gibson Dunn & Crutcher Los Angeles partner Theodore Boutrous Jnr.

The owner of Boutrous (the horse) is the turf-crazy chief executive of mortgage-broking Gibson Dunn client the Vestin Group, who obviously felt he owed Boutrous (the lawyer) an exceptional debt of gratitude after some particularly nifty piece of legalistic wrangling.

Happily, Boutros went on to win his very first race by a nose and is now tipped as a favourite for the Kentucky Derby.

Boutrous Boutrous gee-gee: a highly-strung thoroughbred and his trusty steed