K L.
3/5
The views were definitely epic, but they came with a couple of big hurdles.
The first was that when I booked online there wasnât any way to put the ages of kids or expertise level of the people riding. Itâs fine, but they claim that you donât need any experience. When we showed up, our guide saw us waiting outside of the car and he told us to sign in. After filling the paperwork he came out and said he didnât know that there were kids riding on their own. (I had my 11 and 9 year old riding by themselves). He seems like a very nice guy, but the whole time he was complaining that he already dealt with kids that morning and the slow horses had been used so he didnât have slow horses for us to put the kids on.
The second hurdle was that his horse was not listening, I think he mightâve been a young horse that wasnât as broken-in as his usual horse. He said his horse was hurt, so he couldnât use it and he had to ride a horse that was ânuts.â There were horses that were in the back that he had swapped so I donât know why he couldnât switch his horse to different one. He kept having to smack him and pull the reins to try to get him to keep going on the trail because he wasnât listening. This wouldnât have been a huge issue, but he insisted in holding a lead to lead my daughterâs horse since she was riding on her own. (he suggested my son go ride with my husband doubled up)
His horse kept moving abruptly, and I felt like it was more of a safety issue for my daughter to be near his horse so I asked him to let go of the lead, and have her ride by herself without him pulling the horse. She seemed to do much better without him holding it because, thankfully, her horse (Diamond) was cooperative and chill.
The whole time he seemed very frazzled and worried. Although it is understandable for him to want us to have a good experience with the horses and for everyoneâs safety, I think that him having a different horse and there being better communication when booking a riding session wouldâve made for a much better experience.
The whole time we pretty much felt like a nuisance, and I felt sorry for him. He suggested that we get a partial refund because our experience wasnât as great as it shouldâve been since we didnât have the correct horses to have a smooth ride.
When I communicated with the owner, they just said thank you for letting them know and they didnât offer any sort of compensation or refund. In future, if we were to do this experience again, it would probably have to be with a different guide, but I donât think that I would come back to this Ranch I would try somewhere else.
On a positive note, the views were amazing, the horses that we had were pretty chill and kept trying to eat, but other than that they didnât cause trouble. They had helmets for us if we needed them and the guide was upset, but he was apologetic the whole time.
