Marana Town Magistrate Laine Sklar was recently profiled by Chronicle of the Horse about her love of dressage (as well as adopting two miniature donkeys).
“My mantra is I’m living the dream,” said Laine Sklar. “My horse in my backyard.”
In early October, Sklar moved her dressage horse, Paladin SF, or “PJ,” home and acquired two rescued miniature donkeys, Tanner and Amore, to keep the 10-year-old Arabian/Trakehner (Aul Magic—Padua Go) company. Not every upper level dressage horse can claim best friends of the long-eared persuasion, but PJ gets jealous when the donkeys pay more attention to her than they do him.
“What amazing little creatures,” Sklar said of the donkeys. “I had no experience with donkeys before I got them, you read about them and how they are such soulful animals, and you are like ‘whatever.’”
But she said, the billing is accurate, and they really are quite soulful.
Sklar’s animals and riding are respite from a fulfilling but stressful job as the town magistrate of Marana, Ariz. Sklar is the sole judge for the Marana Municipal Court, and she deals with issues such as criminal misdemeanors, civil traffic violations, injunctions against harassment and orders of protection.
People don’t think of misdemeanors as a big deal, but Sklar notes they have a big impact on their lives.
Injunctions against harassment and orders of protection are often a result of felonious criminal behaviors, such as stalking and assault. “You certainly hear some horrendous factual situations,” she said.
Sklar laughingly calls herself a “typical dressage person” in that she is a self-described perfectionist and control freak. She graduated college in only three years, then went to law school, graduating from the University of Arizona in 2003. By 2006 she was Marana’s assistant town attorney, then later senior assistant town attorney, supervising the Marana’s Prosecutor’s Office. In the fall of 2015, the Town Council appointed her magistrate, the first female to hold the position in Marana’s history.
Read the rest of the story at Chronicles of the Horse
