My daughter started taking horseback riding lessons here in January and initially I thought this place was great. It was VERY laid back, even the website said "Hoity toity we are not." I thought this would be perfect for us because we were just looking for my daughter to learn to ride, not necessarily become the next gold medal Olympic rider. Lessons started out ok, but little things started to happen over time... The instructor was hardly ever out in the arena coaching my daughter, she mostly sat in the gazebo with me and yelled instruction to my daughter. I thought ok, it is hot and sunny, so there's an excuse. But then she started to be on her cell phone more and more during lessons. About 5 lessons in, the instructor lead the horse my daughter was riding on over a small jump without warning. My daughter was never taught how to go over a jump so she was not in a proper position and her head bounced back (similar to what happens if you're in a car accident). I was shocked that she would do this, but I didn't want to freak my daughter out so I tried not to make a big deal out of it. Luckily she didn't fall off and her neck wasn't injured. Lessons were also very inconsistent. It seemed like the instructor decided in the moment what they would do that day, and more lessons than necessary were spent riding a barrel. The first time I kind of understood. She said it was to practice balance, but I would think you could practice balance on the horse, so how many lessons riding a barrel are really necessary? She also had my daughter practice falling off things, which I understand, but is it necessary to spend an hour in the grass practicing falling off high flower beds and doing "trust falls"? Once the instructor brought her kids to the lesson and had them riding on barrels with my daughter and doing handstands. She said she was thinking about teaching her students vaulting. That's great, but my daughter was still a beginner rider so starting to do handstands on a horse didn't seem like a good idea. Frequently I would get calls or texts the day of (sometimes an hour before) the lesson needing to cancel. I understand there are emergency situations, but this happened frequently enough that even my daughter said "Wow, she has REALLY bad luck!". Once, we showed up for a lesson and the instructor was nowhere to be found. She had confirmed the lesson 3 days prior, and I had received no calls or texts saying it was cancelled. I even tried to call & text her to see if everything was ok and got no response. Someone at the barn even tried to call her and got no answer and had no idea where she was. The following day she called me and said something was wrong with her phone and no calls or texts were going through. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. The last straw was when my daughter seemed to have an ok lesson, and suddenly at the end the instructor came to me with my daughter looking very upset and said it was a rough lesson. She seemed exasperated and said my daughter was having trouble remembering things that she had told her time and time again (my daughter is only 9) and she didn't know what to do to help her, literally throwing up her hands. This was the first I had ever heard of this being an issue. My daughter didn't want to talk because she felt she was in trouble, and she didn't know why. I told the instructor I would talk to my daughter & follow up with her, and she said she would text me more specific info on why the lesson was rough. After some coaxing, my daughter finally said everything was going ok until she forgot one thing while she was un-tacking and the instructor had gotten mad at her. I follow up with a text to the instructor letting her know this, and I never heard anything back. I also never got a text or call from the instructor with more info on why she felt it was a rough lesson. Two days later I texted again to confirm my daughters next lesson, and got no response. The day before the lesson I still hadn't heard anything and I was getting frustrated, so I texted her again that since she never replied to my text about the last lesson or followed up with info about issues in that last lesson, AND hadn't responded to my request to confirm her next lesson, that we were putting lessons at A&A Equestrian on hold while we explore other facilities/instructors. At 10:40 pm she finally texted me back and said that she did respond to my text about the lesson issues (she did not, I received no texts from her for almost 4 days) and that her phone had been off because she doesn't work Saturdays. That didn't explain why she never replied to my text on Friday to confirm the next lesson. I feel that since I was paying A&A Equestrian $60 per lesson ($120 a week for 2 lessons/week) that we should have received better riding instruction and communication/reliability from the instructor. Long story short, we received inconsistent and distracted riding instruction with frequent last-minute cancellations. read more