A Conversation With...Cheryl Vogelpohl of Diamond TR Ranch
By Lisa Broadwater

It's hard to imagine a challenge that would much faze Cheryl Vogelpohl. Just listening to her discuss the complex juggling act known as her life is enough to tire the average soul. Just moments before you were frustrated yourself — the scheduled interview time having passed a good 30 minutes while you watched Vogelpohl at work, so thoroughly engrossed in a dressage lesson with German trainer Alex Wortmann that she seems unaware of your very existence.
Now, of course, you understand that it was not an intentional snub. It's just that it's the horse that's the priority — it's always the horse that is foremost. In this case, it was the opportunity for Cheryl and Cheyenne, her 16-year-old dressage partner, to spend an additional 30 minutes studying with a master. Why on earth would anyone give that up to gab with a small-town reporter? Can't say as you blame her.
You thought you pretty much knew her story already — the big-city attorney/mounted patrol officer who doubles as manager of the family ranch. Pretty distinctive stuff. But that's just the beginning. First, a little background...
Ray and Theresa Vogelpohl bought the 300-acre Circle S Ranch, located at the foot of the Ouachita Mountains west of Little Rock on Highway 10, back in 1994. They promptly renamed the place the Diamond TR Ranch (for Theresa and Ray), and began building a business that now encompasses a 35-horse stable, indoor and outdoor arenas, boarders, lessons, trail rides, workshops, clinics and day camps.
Back then, daughter Cheryl was still in law school. As the family renovated the ranch (which had been dormant for a decade), she also went on to found her own practice in juvenile and special education law, join the Pulaski County Mounted Patrol and then work for the public defender commission specializing in capital murder defense — all the while giving lessons at the Diamond TR.
Last year, after a catastrophic injury to her leg — courtesy of a rogue horse — Vogelpohl quit her law job and returned to the Diamond TR full-time. When she's not busy giving lessons (an average of 15 to 20 per week), she's organizing a slate of clinics and workshops at the ranch or helping plan next year's Hoof Fest horse expo or dreaming up future events to host. Editor Lisa Broadwater caught up with her late one August evening, the day before the Diamond TR hosted a two-day classical dressage clinic with Wortmann.

Horsemen's Roundup: How did your family get into horses?
Cheryl Vogelpohl: I've been horse-crazy since I was 4 or 5; in fact, I still have my first horse — he's about knee-high and has red wheels and his name is Sugar Horse. I had been bugging my parents for a horse; at 14, I finally got one — and we still have him. He's a half-Arabian, half-Tennessee Walker. We brought him home when he was 6 months old, and the rest is history.
I worked at Applewood Stables in Little Rock during high school; I was their groom for three or four years. Then I went to college and kept my love of horses, but you know how that is...

HR: Your parents weren't into it?
CV: They were a little bit. When I left for college, Dad threatened to sell my horse because nobody was doing anything with him. So Mom decided to start riding. She put a saddle on and took off and didn't really know what she was doing. But then she started taking lessons.
Dad finally decided he better get a horse so he could spend time with her because she would get on the horse in the morning and take off and not come back till dark.
I got back from college and they had built a barn and were going to board a few horses. For a Christmas present, I got riding lessons and a Western saddle. I ended up taking lessons with Marty Hopkins at Crestfield (I still go over there), taking lessons on her school horses in her English saddles. She's the one who really introduced me to dressage.

HR: How did your family end up here?
CV: That's a story in and of itself. The city kept moving closer and closer to where we were living and the trails kept shrinking. Mom had always dreamed of owning this place. This used to be the Circle S Ranch, and Mom's maiden name is Straessle. They used to drive by here when she was a little girl. This has always been a horse ranch, and she's been horse crazy since she was little.
When they started looking for a place to buy, this place came up for sale. So they took a leap of faith and bought it. This barn was probably six months to a year from falling in. We've done an amazing amount of work.

HR: The plan was to do what?
CV: Exactly what we're doing know.

HR: How long did it take to get into shape?
CV: We bought it in winter 1994. I moved into the barn apartment that spring. At that time, we had three horses. Now we have 34, 20 of which are ours.

HR: What do you consider your main expertise?
CV: I like dressage. The style of riding we teach here is a dressage-based seat, but it's for anybody. It's a centered-balance seat. I use a lot of Sally Swift's centered-riding techniques. As a matter of fact, we've got a centered-riding clinician coming in October.
It's a good, safe way to learn to ride. We try to take it beyond just learning to get on the horse and ride; it's horsemanship, learning to understand the horse. The students learn to groom and tack the horses; they learn to pay attention to their horse, to listen to the body language of the horse. Because the horse is the best teacher. The horse is the one who's going to tell them if they're doing it right or if they're not doing it correctly.

HR: When did you start offering clinics?
CV: About a year ago. Alex comes about every three or four months. We do the desensitizing clinic two or three times a year. That's something my father and I put on. It's for anybody and everybody — trail riders, pleasure riders, show people. There's nothing worse than being in a show ring and having somebody stand up at the rail and your horse freaks out.
It's good for any type of horse, any type of rider. It teaches the horse and rider to have a good relationship and teaches the horse to trust the rider.

HR: What got you started with that?
CV: Both my father and I were in the Pulaski County Mounted Patrol as reserves and we went through a desensitizing course in Little Rock. I also went through a course in New Orleans. The New Orleans Police Department Mounted Patrol puts on one a year, and it's one of the biggest in the country.
After seeing that and talking with people, we had boarders here and other people saying, "It would be great if you could do a clinic like that," and of course the mounted police go through so much — that's probably the height of desensitization. So we took what we had learned in the clinics and put it in a format that your everyday rider can use.

HR: How did you get involved with Alex Wortmann?
CV: I went to a USDF [United States Dressage Federation] Region 9 trainers and instructors symposium in April 2002 in Glen Rose, Texas. Alex was there along with Hannes Mueller, who is the director of the German Equestrian Federation, which is the ultimate dressage school. Every instructor in Germany has to go through that school.
We started talking to Alex about coming up here. He came up first a year ago at Lucky Acres in Jacksonville. He was supposed to come back and go to a couple of other barns, but that fell through, so we said, "Why don't you come here?"
This is his third time back here, and he's scheduled back for November 13-14, and we'll keep it a regular thing because his depth of knowledge is so incredible.

HR: How long have you been studying dressage?
CV: Six or seven years.

HR: Was that after the mounted patrol?
CV: Actually, I kind of played with it before. Then as I got into the mounted patrol, I realized that mounted police use dressage. They use the seat; most of their horses are dressage-trained. And the school in New Orleans had two dressage instructors teaching riding.
For me, dressage is fascinating because it's the ultimate in communication with your horse. When you reach your upper levels and you really are in total harmony with the horse, you can't see the aids and you can do anything you want to and...
I'm a perfectionist. I'm one of those Type A personality perfectionists. Dressage is the ultimate for the Type A because it's so exacting. It's one of those things where you definitely have to enjoy the journey because if you ever reach your destination, you need to get off your horse and never get back on. And it's a challenge; I enjoy a challenge.

HR: Why mounted patrol?
CV: It just sounded like fun. I was working as an attorney at the time. I moved home from college in '92 and started the MBA program at UALR and decided it wasn't for me. I decided to go to law school in August '93 and graduated in May '96. All through the time we were buying this place, I was in law school. It was crazy.
I got out of law school and started my own practice doing juvenile and special education law.

HR: Why that?
CV: I tend to be the underdog champion and like a challenge. I did that for two years and then went to work for the public defender commission as a capital conflicts attorney; I did capital murder defense. I did that for four years, which you can imagine is a high-stress job.
While I was working as an attorney, I kept trying to come out here and do lessons. Needless to say, that was difficult.

HR: Did you learn much horse-wise with the mounted patrol?
CV: Yes, especially when I went to the two mounted patrol schools. That's when I really learned a lot about how you can use the horse as a partner for your self-defense to help you do police work.
In New Orleans, at the end of Mardi Gras, they line up the horses at the end of Bourbon Street and they push people out. That's how they do riot control in many large cities; so those horses have to be truly bomb-proof. And the horse has to learn to protect you as well. If you get into a fight, the horse is your tool.
That was one thing that bothered me. If it came down to me or the horse, I had to be willing to let him go. And I couldn't do that.
But I did the patrol for four years — until 2002.

HR: What happened to your leg?
CV: I got kicked in 2002. We had a horse come in where people who didn't know a lot about horses and they got took, basically. He was a blind kicker — he just struck out with no reason, no warning.
He had some problems with his back legs, and we had him in a stall and I had bent down and was running my hand down his back leg to show the girl who bought him what was wrong with his leg. I had just stepped back and was off to the side and he fired at my left thigh. It sounded like a baseball bat hitting a ball.

HR: What did he do?
CV: I say I had a blowout; I don't know how else to describe it. The doctor called it a muscle rupture. His hoof hit full-on; he hit so hard it literally pulverized all the muscle and tissue underneath it. And he hit with such force that it blew out my skin.
It was not pleasant, not at all. I remember the doctor saying, "Let's take some X-rays and see what we're dealing with. But we're probably talking about several surgeries and putting some rods in and traction." And I was going, "But I've got to ride at Hoof Fest in three months." That's all I could think about, was "I've gotta ride; you can't do this to me."
And that was my biggest fear — that I'd never ride again. It wasn't, "I can't go back to work." It wasn't, "What's gonna happen with all this other stuff?" It was "I'm never gonna be able to ride again."
When you get an injury like this that kind of sets you back, you think, "Maybe there's more important things in life than going in and working my tail off and being in that high-stress of a position." Yes, somebody's got to do it, but at that point I realized that maybe it didn't need to be me anymore.

HR: How long was your recovery?
CV: The wound itself didn't heal for a month and a half. They discharged me in three days after emergency surgery (they had to go in and clean out all that dead tissue).
I came home from the hospital on my birthday. It was a good birthday present. That was Jan. 9; I didn't go back to work at the office until the end of January and that was too early. I went in one day and came home for the rest of the week because I couldn't handle it; I was so weak.
Of course, within a week of going home I was on a horse.

HR: What? Are you crazy?
CV: Yeah. I used a mounting block to get on my horse bareback.

HR: Did you just need to prove you could?
CV: I missed it, and I needed to prove I could get up there. The doctor told me to take it easy, to go at my own pace and that we had to let all the muscle heal before I could go into any structured physical therapy.
But my mom is a nurse, and we started working that muscle the day I got home from the hospital — just little isotonics to start building the muscle back up.

HR: Are you 100 percent yet?
CV: I'm never gonna be 100 percent. But when they discharged me, one of my goals was to be able to mount the horse on the left side again — to put that much pressure on that leg and knee and get on the horse from that side.
Well, goal met. But in spring of this year, it tore again and loosened up, so I have to wear a brace to help support my knee.

HR: What's your role with Hoof Fest? And what other groups are you associated with?
CV: I'm one of the organizers. I'll be doing that again for 2004 — I'm a glutton for punishment. Last year was my first time to be that involved; the year before I had organized the breed demonstrations and the year before that I helped do some demonstrations. So I keep getting more and more involved as the years go on.
I'm also on the board of the Arkansas Dressage Society. We have schooling shows, and I'm helping organize the rated show in September [Sept. 6-7 at Maumelle Equestrian Center].

HR: Any other affiliations?
CV: I do the Practical Horse Care workshop series, which is for horse owners or want-to-be horse owners — about everything you always wanted to know about horses but nobody told you.
We try to do it at least once a year. It's a six-workshop series that's held one Saturday a month [the next one, on Sept. 27, focuses on nutrition and health care].
I'm a member of the Certified Horsemanship Association, and have an instructor certification with them. I got that in 1998. That's really where I learned to teach because I went to a weeklong 8 a.m.-8 p.m. workshop. We were evaluated on how we presented lessons, how we handled the students and the different styles of riding. It was a pretty intense workshop.
I also just got certified through the American Riding Instructors Association. They're strictly a certifying body; they don't teach you how to teach; they just certify you. And they have 12 or 13 different disciplines they certify in, most of the U.S.A. Equestrian. I got mine in recreational riding and stable management.

HR: Are you working on any more or have you done enough?
CV: No, I don't feel like I've done enough. As a matter of fact, what got the centered-riding clinic started was that centered riding is one of the foundations we use for our teaching here, and I wanted to get a certification in that.
To do that, you've got to go to what they call an open clinic. But there wasn't one around here. I started looking last year around this time; the closest one was in Franklin, Tenn., and it got canceled.
So I decided, "Phooey, I'll have my own. That way I don't have to worry about it getting canceled." So I am [it's Oct. 10-12] — and it's with the same woman I would have had it with in the first place. And then I'll have to go to an instructor's clinic, which will probably be another year or two down the road.
USDF has instructor certifications also. They just started what they call the registered teacher program, and they don't even have all the paperwork together yet. The registered teacher is more for the people at the beginner and intermediate level up to 2nd level.
They have upper-level certifications, but my riding as far as the tests I ride with Cheyenne, aren't high enough for me to go for those certifications. But when they get the paperwork together to be a registered teacher, I'm gonna apply for that.

HR: Do you regret at all giving up your regular job?
CV: No.

HR: How much different is your life?
CV: A lot more relaxed. A lot more. Even though I'm working my tail off. My husband is a police officer, and he works 3 to 11. So by the time he gets home and we get to visit a little bit, it's after midnight. I get up at 7-7:30, which isn't that early but when you go to bed at 12:30, 7 comes early. And it's rare that I get home before 8:30, especially in the summertime because we do lessons in the evening. Even in the winter, we do lessons in the barn and the indoor arena.
So I'm working harder. I feel like sometimes I don't know how to keep up with it all. I do all our marketing, advertising, sending out letters, trying to keep up the mailing list. We do two day camps in the summertime, one in June and one in July. And we do beginning horsemanship classes with the Arkansas Extended Learning Center. We have one that runs for six weeks beginning Oct. 13.

HR: What else?
CV: You know, horses can teach people a lot about themselves. Mom and I have talked about coming up with a workshop to help people learn communication skills through horses. There are actually a couple of medical schools that use horses, round penning in particular, to teach residents good bedside manner. Because a horse picks up on your body language. He picks up on the slightest movement. And you've got to adjust what you're doing to the horse's personality. Horses have personalities just like people do, and if you've got a horse that's on the timid side and you're very assertive and bossy, the horse is likely to take off into a corner somewhere. It's the same thing when you have a patient.
I would like to do something along those lines with attorneys — for jury selection and interview techniques. That was something I noticed helped me when I did jury trials. I could read the body language.
We also have a leadership series we've done in the past and will start up again in the spring. It's fondly known as "Bosses on Hosses." It teaches leaders how to lead using horses and teaching teamwork. You can't manage a horse; you have to lead him. And the only way you're going to be able to lead the horse is if they respect you and trust you.

HR: Are your parents still real involved?
CV: They're very involved. Dad is known as the trail boss; he's the one who takes everybody out on the trails. Mom and I tag-team lessons; we both do lessons on Saturday. Sometimes I might have started a student and done several lessons with them and she might take over, especially if I've hit an issue with a student and can't quite figure out how to help the student through whatever wall it is we've run into. She'll take over.
We're enough alike and enough different that she can see things I won't and I can see things she doesn't. We can relate to different people better. She relates better to our older students, especially the mothers. When it comes to being assertive with the horse and that type of thing, sometimes I relate better. But it's great to have both of us here, because we can switch off and between the two of us, we can relate to just about anybody.