Trainer Les Vogt

Chet Vogt’s brother Les is a very famous horse trainer – especially with reining horses and riders. I did a clinic with him last year here in New Mexico and found him a good teacher and communicator. And he had great stories about growing up with some of my other friends!

From his website:
“I was raised around traditional California bridle horses in California’s Central Valley where my Dad farmed and ranched. I was an inquisitive kid and got the kind of horseman’s education you couldn’t buy, then or today. My dad, Norman, hired on with several ranches after the war and I can remember watching him with the other cowboys as they worked in the corrals and feed lots. I’d hide and watch them, because they had no time for a kid. It was like a secret club they were all in, and I knew from the first moment that their work with the horses and the cattle was what I wanted.”

“So I got a little older and decided to strike it rich at the rodeos. I rode bareback broncs mostly, and won the California State Championship two years. About that time, my wife, Corolyn, was riding in shows and made it look like easy money so I started showing and suddenly gained a lot of respect for her riding skills. We were young and broke and having a wonderful time.”

“King Fritz was a phenomenal sire. When people found out we owned him, they started sending me some of his older colts to ride and they were so talented I’d load up three horses and go to a show and win first, second, and third. This was in the 70’s, in the glory days of the cow horse Snaffle Bit Futurities. We worked hard, but with those horses, winning came easy. I thought I was a great horse trainer, and that all those old guys I used to watch when I was a kid sure had lost their touch. My youthful ignorance was such that I didn’t realize it was the horses, not me, that were great.”

“It took some time to find my roots as a horseman after King Fritz [died], but I kept at it and had more champions along the way. By now it was the late 80’s and the cow horse world had lost some of its glitter, and suddenly there was this giant thing called reining. I was riding a great horse at the time called Chex A Nic, and decided to go to a reining and show those split-rein boys a thing or two. It was a very humbling experience. I discovered that there was a world of difference between the cow horse dry work and the way the reiners were showing their horses at that time. A good horse is a good horse, but the reiners had so much precision, so much more finesse, that it was almost like watching a different sport. Unlike the old-time cow horse guys, though, the reiners were friendly and helpful.”

“In 1992, I took Chex A Nic to the Quarter horse World show and he won both the senior reining and the senior working cow horse, the first time the same horse had won both events in one year. It justified my training methods and also proved that a horse can work cattle and rein, that competing in both classes doesn’t confuse the horse. Nowadays, a lot of those reiners are getting interested in cow horses, so where I borrowed from them now I’m getting a chance to return the favor a little bit. Western performance horses- cutters, reiners, ropers, cow horses- are all evolving quickly right now towards an ideal western horse that’s light, responsive, balanced, athletic, and fun to ride. The horses and the methods are changing, yet I see more horsemen rediscovering value in some of the traditional training and tools.”

As you can tell quite a guy. Make sure you checkout his website to learn about his clinics, DVDs, equipment and travel schedule. He also has a silver bits and spurs business you can see by clicking HERE.

You can get more information at his website by clicking HERE.

Les Vogt explains why you shouldn’t worry about falling off: