What started as a hobby while serving in the Army has become a passion for Hicks Johnson associate Dave Finkel, who participated in the world’s longest equestrian endurance race, the Mongol Derby, this August.
For 10 days, riders navigate the unmarked course in the Mongolian wilderness with a GPS, stopping at intermittent stations to change horses and refuel themselves. That challenge stands in stark contrast to what Finkel encounters during a typical work week as a trial lawyer in Houston who focuses his practice on mass tort, products liability and business torts.
“You could think that it’s just flat terrain,” Finkel said in a recent interview, recounting his experience in Mongolia. “And [you] end up going through a swamp.”
The 620-mile horseback race through the Mongolian grasslands mimics a horse messenger system developed by Genghis Khan. The champion gets only bragging rights as a prize. Finkel, who traveled more than 6,000 miles to compete this year, heard about the Mongol Derby from an Army friend who competed in 2023.
Of all the possible pitfalls he could have encountered during the race, Finkel never got lost and never had to use the panic button attached to each racer’s GPS system.
“But I did meander my way into a swamp a couple of times before I learned and made my way back out and went the long way around instead of trying to take a shortcut,” Finkel said.
Finkel said he rode three to four ponies each day, and in total, each race participant cycles through about 30 ponies.
Training for the race meant Finkel was doing CrossFit and riding twice a week, while using the weekends for long distance rides.
His wife, Brittany, planned to come to the race as a spectator, but she was too far along in her pregnancy (the couple welcomed a baby boy in November) to make the August trip. Not being there wasn’t great for her nerves, she said.
“Especially right before the baby, I was just like come home with everything, don’t break anything, please,” Brittany said.
Some people do get seriously injured while participating in the race. This year, some riders suffered broken ribs and shoulder blades.
The unusual race draws amateur and professional riders, though not many people are willing or able to compete in the annual event. Of the 45 competitors who began the race this year — from the U.S., U.K., U.A.E., Australia, New Zealand, Iceland, South Africa, Holland, Germany, and Ireland — eight didn’t finish due to injury and fatigue. Finkel and 36 others completed the race.
“I was very happy to finish and be relatively unscathed,” Finkel said.
Finkel was at one of the horse stations during the race and began talking to fellow racer Jessica O’Quin, who is an in-house lawyer for InterContinental Hotels Group in Georgia.
Despite the grueling nature of the race, O’Quin found it recharged her.
“You spend so much cerebral effort and not a lot of physical effort, sitting and trying to solve legal issues, regardless of which type of law you practice, and it’s just constant planning and problem solving and thinking,” O’Quin said. “Then, when you go and interact with an animal. It’s an opportunity to step back and reconnect with nature. And it forces you and invites you to come back into the present.”
O’Quin — who experienced an unplanned dismount when her horse fell into a hole and collapsed, strained her ACL and did not complete the race — plans on doing the Mongol Derby again next year.
But the Mongol Derby may be a one-time thing for Finkel.
“I do not have a burning desire to do the Mongolian Derby again,” Finkel said, while raising the prospect of participating in the 310-mile Gaucho Derby in Patagonia at some point in the future.
Taking Lessons
It was in 2011, when Finkle was serving in the Army and stationed in North Carolina, that he started riding horses.
“I was living with two other infantry officers and was a platoon leader at the time, so surrounded by infantrymen, be it at work or at home. And so I was looking for other hobbies,” Finkel said.
After driving past horse farms with signs offering riding lessons, he decided to give it a try. It became a pastime he carried with him when his Army career took him to Georgia, and one he got more serious about during his time stationed in Kansas in 2015.
And when his Army service concluded, he stayed on the horse, so to speak. While attending the University of Chicago Law School, from 2018 through 2021, he was a member of the school’s riding club.
“At each location, I’d do a little bit more advanced riding,” Finkel said.
Endurance riding became the next step in his journey, which he picked up while clerking for U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit Judge Timothy M. Tymkovich in Colorado.
When he moved to Houston in 2024 to join Hicks Johnson, he connected with his current trainer, Alisija Zabavska. Zabavska, who in recent years has been twice named best endurance rider by the Lithuanian Equestrian Federation, was the impetus for his foray into racing.
Finkel said that it’s beneficial for the clients to see their attorneys as human beings who have hobbies outside of work.
“I think it goes to show that if they have an attorney who is willing to do these types of challenges in their free time, that the skills are transferable and the work ethic is transferable,” Finkel said.