From a $600 Quarter Horse to a World Class Warmblood Stallion

Bock, who grew up in Michigan and Colorado, got her first horse when she was 12. When she was seven, her father told her that if she still wanted a horse when she was 12, she could have one. She waited patiently for five years. “I turned 12 and reminded my dad of his promise. I started looking in the newspapers and I found a Quarter Horse for $600 with tack. It’s hard to imagine that price today. That was my first horse. I lived on that horse.”

She competed in numerous Western competitions and got her first taste of dressage when she saw a woman giving dressage lessons. By then, Bock was highly competitive and noticed that this woman’s students did better in competition. Hence, Bock approached her asking for help with her equitation. What she got were lessons in things she’d never heard of before, such as roundness and “being on the bit.” From there, she eventually moved on to be a working student with a dressage trainer based in Boulder, Colorado named Sue Curry. Along the way she became a USDF First Level Junior/Young Rider champion. She found her way to Texas when she went there for college and, of course, took her horse with her so she could continue to ride and compete.

Bock has never taken a break from her riding, despite the fact that she has a busy career as an attorney. Her riding, however, is so important to her that she convinced her employer to take her off the partnership track and give her time to campaign her 10-year-old Dutch Warmblood stallion by Lancelot. Parcival was found in Barcelona, Spain by Rife and initially Bock rejected him because he was a stallion, but she changed her mind when she met him. She’s was won over by his good manners and obedience.

“He had been with the same trainer for many years and was supposedly a Prix St. Georges champion in Spain, but I haven’t verified that,” Bock said.

Riding her way to a spot on a U.S. team has become a goal of Bock’s and to that end, she devotes endless hours. “All my vacation time is spent at horse shows. It’s rare that I go somewhere that doesn’t involve hauling my horse along,” she said. She has even put her 12-acre farm north of Dallas on the market so that she’s free to travel if that’s what it takes to make it to the top. Where she’ll end up, is unknown to her. “My future is kind of wide open,” Bock said. “I don’t know where my riding will take me. At the same time, Lyndon has been a good trainer and has stood by me for 12 years, so I might even just stay where I am.”