I only spent a short time at this barn and left about a year ago, but I how disappointed I was in…read morethis place has stayed on my mind. during the time when I first signed up, I was told about how great it is, how custom the programs are, how many different opportunities there are, and the truly personalized care everyone receives; inclusive. while I do agree there are some neat opportunities when Ashley brings in other professionals for classes or clinics, it is not worth the pain of everything else. it was and still is my understanding that only a relatively small group of people are prioritized and have had good experiences, but from what I have experienced myself, the following is very likely a more realistic picture of what you will get. for one, how much you are paying matters... if you are on the lowest tier, you are lowest on the list of people Ashley cares about and it is hard to advance if you do not have the budget. her effort with me, not being a more wealthy client was astonishingly low. even those I had known to pay for the most expensive package for lessons/showing/boarding felt jipped when all was said and done. regardless of that, lessons with Ashley specifically (not the other trainers) were extremely unstructured and little instruction or advice was actually given. She very clearly either had little interest in or had difficulty paying attention to more than one student at a time, so group lessons (basically the only thing available unless you are a special few...) are basically "supervised" freestyle practice... and I once saw a lesson with approximately 12 students... it was a mess and the arena was not sizable enough to safely accommodate that many children, in my opinion(all inappropriate considering the price and what was promised). while every trainer has their own philosophy, and they do not work for everyone, which is okay, Ashley had particularly strange rules about never jumping a single horse above 2ft unless it was in competition (if this has changed since, I do not know), so I felt extremely under challenged and frustrated as a rider of 10+ years who did not have the financial flexibility to partake in competition. The goal of this was to home in on the basics of riding/jumping in the hopes that it would translate to higher jumps but in reality that is not how it worked if you cannot ever practice the more difficult courses or higher jumps. the second goal of this rule was to be gentle on the horse's and pony's legs because these animals were CONSTANTLY in use... I think way more clients were being taken on than could be practically scheduled or handled. All that is to say, this was my experience when I was even able to get a lesson. I was cancelled on repeatedly and it was hard to reschedule. Communication was a huge weak point of this facility (although Ashley has no problem openly saying judgemental things about her students to other clients and employees). during one month I had paid ahead in full, and was not able to get in for a single lesson because time management is a huge issue here (only one lesson out of that month will I conceed and say the cancellation was truly beyond anyone's control) Ashley agreed to suspend payment and give me the next month for free because of this, but I was never scheduled then either. I was never contacted again, though I tried, never saw any money back, and quit the place in frustration.
While employees and student volunteers did their best to keep the place clean, stalls were not to the standards that I think any self respecting horseman would allow. since leaving I have only heard other horror stories about neglect of the animals, which is certainly much more serious than my own personal gripes about lesson quality or Ashley's personality.
the bottom line is that there are double standards, promises often go unfulfilled, there is an air of immaturity, and this place is not of the quality it tries to portray for horse or rider.
