Vogel Equine

This is a show group. If you like horses and want to do it right, come here.
I rode with a previous group who held me back. Coming to Vogel Equine was an eye opener. Amazingly trained horses. Award-​winning trainers and excellent care taking.
If you want to ride on occasion, and for the enjoyment you will find the best. If you decide to advance and wish to show… You will find yourself meeting you goals.
I was motivated immediately. Nothing but praise to Vogel Equine.
Your review helps others learn about great local businesses.
Please don’t review this business if you received a freebie for writing this review, or if you’re connected in any way to the owner or employees.

Would not recommend to anyone. Trainers here are completely uneducated, it is just unsafe. All they care about is taking your money. Horses are over worked and medicated to be sound enough to ride. Save your money and invest elsewhere!

Some of these negative reviews are pretty old. I’m going to talk about my experience working with Vogel Equine for about the last year. My daughter was 6 when she started and is 7 now. We are being trained by the wonderful Kelsie who works for Lauren. I’ve always felt as if my daughters safety and learning has been at the forefront of the experience at Vogel. I feel like working with the Vogel team and horses has been a very enriching experience for my daughter and that it pays dividends outside of the horse arena in terms of self confidence, poise and responsibility. Having the right kind of horse is important as well — for my daughter we ride «Roxy» who is a smaller, very calm horse so she is perfect for my daughter to learn on. I should mention, the class is very hands on with lots of responsibility thrown in like brushing the horse, picking its hooves, putting on the saddles, etc. In short, its a great experience and one that i’d recommend to young and old.

So my 5 year old has been begging to ride for years and I found a groupon last spring for Vogel and began a wonderful journey with Megan working with Isa and nurturing a passion that has been so incredibly positive. She has developed such an incredible relationship with Megan and this experience has been amazing! We are headed to our 3^rd show this weekend and look forward to many more!

My daughter who has been riding for over 20 yrs. came over to Vogel barn last year because of the amazing teaching skills Lauren has. There are lot of trainers that do not know how to teach jumpers nor know the basic skills of riding. After reading some of these reviews I find it very hard to believe as I see the staff checking voice mail thru out the day and returning calls. The horse business has a number of people who are very unfriendly and will be nice when you are at their barn but are rude when you leave. I went right to the barn of Vogel and spoke to a large number of her clients that all said the same thing «Lauren is a amazing trainer and they all love her. So if I was looking to ride, go talk to the clients first to know the truth– That’s what I did and my daughter couldn’t be happier. As in any sport you need to learn the correct way to ride for your safety and the safety of the horse. That is why you want a trainer that knows what she/​he is doing.

I purchased a groupon for 3 private lessons. At first, it was a bit difficult to schedule my appointments due the the high temperatures in the summer. I started speaking with Tristen and she was gracious enough to get me scheduled, even after the groupon expired. Tristen is also my trainer now and I feel very comfortable with her and the horse that I have been riding. She understands and respects where I am at with my riding experience, which requires a trust between trainer and student. I just want to say a big thank you to Tristen for helping me all the way through my experience and do highly recommend you schedule lessons with her. She is honest, easy to talk with, patient, and very encouraging. If it wasn’t for her, I dont think I would have even left a review. Thank you Tristen!

Great place to ride and to learn. Love the trainers and good new friends. Would recommend this school.

I would like to begin by sharing my sadness to see that there only negative reviews left on this page after knowing there were many positives.
I began my journey by stumbling across Vogel Equine during a routing trip to the neighboring dog park. I had ridden and shown western as a child and young adult, however life got away from me at 18 and riding took a back seat. In September 2012, I had my first lesson with VE. I was amazed at how this entire barn was not just a community but a family. A place where children and adults alike learned the discipline and responsibility of this great sport.
My new found journey has had its bumps along the way, that is for sure. Only contributing factors were things caused by myself. However, with Lauren Vogel’s dedication and true instruction I have found a way to finally see that I have achieved MY dream. Lauren has guided me to a level I didn’t think possible, at least not this late in life for sure!
I have witnessed VE guiding so many riders to confidence and levels that riders at other barns never get the opportunity to achieve. Funny part is… the instruction here is still more competitive price wise than any other in the area.
Being a business professional myself, I can definitely understand that you can never please 100% of the people 100% of the time, which is something that rings loud and clear as it is typically those not satisfied that are the ones to post negative reviews. Then, those of us that are, are filtered or unheard.
I agree attacking anyone on their physical limitations is not correct, however you do need to be of a certain physical condition to excel at riding.
Hopefully, there will be others that do see this and understand the good out weigh the bad by miles.

SECOND UPDATE: Referring me as being obese or 300lb doesn’t validate your point of view I have not been nor have ever been close to 300lbs. If this was true wouldn’t this make the trainer negligent for allowing me to ride in the first place. Which is the exact point behind my review. My mount was switched at the last moment so something not appropriate for my skill level. See Jack’s review for another negligent situation.
UPDATE: Nothing in this review has been exaggerated. Would like to see a real positive review not one that is a response to a negative review or prompted by the owner. Also note all the new reviews are by people who just signed up for Unilocal and seem like rebuttals that essential blame someone for a bad experience «timid», «obese» «doesn’t listen». Unilocalers if you were really happy with your experience you would have posted a long time ago and not waited for the owner to ask you to do so. My review still stands. Don’t ride here. You’ll feel like your getting places and having a good time but really your being taken for a big long ride. Ask some people in the industry. They’ll tell you the real truth
Recommended Reading:
Green: The Missing Horseback Rider’s Guide for Keeping Your Money, Sanity, and Joy
ORIGINAL REVIEW
I’ve been hesitating about writing this review for years because I didn’t want the owner to be mad at me but in retrospect why should I care about the opinion of a trainer that cares nothing for her students safety. Just about the money and if your going to buy one of her overpriced feedlot horses.
In the 6 months I was a student there I was pushed beyond my ability and given green unsafe horses to ride. If you fell it was your fault. You were mocked if you didn’t want to beat your horse into submission. Gossip behind your back was a guaranteed.
For the month of my accident I had paid for ½ training and a ½ lease for a pony. The pony wasn’t available one day because she had overbooked lessons and only had 1 – 2 lesson horses.
So I was assigned to ride a horse that she didn’t actually own or have permission to use in lessons. A recently off the track racehorse who I had seen freak out several times but I was reassured that she had made progress. I had only been riding for 10 weeks at that point. I fell badly. (Supposedly my fault) I broke my wrist and nose and was taken to the local hospital as an incoming trauma. Cost if I hadn’t of had insurance $ 55,000. I was off work for a month and went back early only because I couldn’t eat the lost income of $ 600 a week the short term disability didn’t cover.
My husband read the situation at the time better than I did stating when Lauren called him that she sounded more concerned about her liability than my wellbeing. Could I have sued? Of course I never signed a proper liability agreement for that facility though I offered to do so after the fact and she didn’t take me up on that offer. But what would I have ended up with a few crappy ponies? She owed money to everyone. Not a very good businesswomen.
So hide your kids, hide your wife and hide your husband because it’s just not safe here and I’ll probably never ride again and its a real shame. She’s a smooth talker but has a bad reputation.

Tried for over a year to contact this merchant in order to redeem a Groupon. I emailed several times and left over 20 voicemails. I have never been able to reach someone and have had no calls or emails returned. Either this business is no longer operating, or they do not have the common courtesy to follow up with potential clients. In the end, after 16 months of no contact, I received a refund from Groupon.

I went to redeem my groupon for 1hr lesson. When I was making appointment, the lady told me that me and my bf would be in different session as limited horse/​individual session. She put us down 9, 10am. So I made a reservation for brunch at 11:30 accordingly since I thought we would spend 2hrs. When I got there, apparently someone was going to use the horse at 10pm so they put us together without even asking. I didn’t mind it but why wouldn’t they tell us in advance? :/​Then lesson began with lots of horse brushing… Our riding didn’t start until 9:30. Instructors weren’t with us, most of time she’d just tell us to walk, and then later on trot (since I took lesson long time ago) and wasn’t really giving us a lesson. She was busy standing in the middle, talking to other people than paying attention to us. Then we returned around 10:10…so I guess you get about 40mins riding time. Honestly, My group lesson long time ago was much better experience. The Instructor from my group lesson was very nice and knowledgeable but not this one. I don’t think I’d return again.

Lauren is a reckless, careless, thoughtless trainer. My trainer was on vacation and I thought I would be safe continuing my lessons with Lauren, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I ended up in the hospital with a collapsed lung, broken rib etc.(the ring was too crowded, Lauren wasn’t paying attention because if you aren’t jumping and performing beyond your ability she’s bored with you) After being tossed from the horse I struggled to get up, unable to breath and Lauren was standing over me saying stop making that noise and get up. She didn’t even give me her hand to help me up, she didn’t call for help and I ended up driving myself to the hospital, sadly because I was still in shock and disoriented. Ride here if you want to push the limits and do NOT value your life. I would never let anyone I love or care for ride with Lauren. I later found out I’m not the only (preventable) accident that’s happened with Lauren. Get this, she also wouldn’t return the rest of my money for lessons or let me schedule them for a later date with my trainer after I recovered because I didn’t heal within the month!!! and I had spent thousands riding with her barn and purchasing tack before the accident.