Great horseshows for beginners or schooling young or green horses Classes for all Nice jumps good arena read more

This place deserves a no star review. Let me preface this by stating I've been in and out of the horse world since 1992. So I'm not new to this game. A few years ago, my daughter had expressed the desire to take riding lessons. I had lost my gelding a few years prior and Just stopped riding all together. I looked back into local barns, she wanted to learn Western. So I showed her a few open discipline barns. And she chose Celtic Cross. I reached out and unfortunately they didn't have any openings at the time. Which was fine. We held off, partially due to the pandemic, until they reached out back out to me saying they had beginner lessons starting. My daughter switched to English after not being able to swing a saddle on a 16 hh horse by herself (she was a petite 9 year old just starting out, didn't quite grasp the mechanics yet) Every time I tried to help, I would get yelled at. That was one red flag I over looked. The conversations that included bashing other riders from other lessons made me uncomfortable. (The other review where the kids were crying? Marilee referred to them as the cry baby sisters). I would reply "that's horrible" hoping she would get the hint, I did not want to talk about others. They have one "coach" that pretty much told my daughter she sucked. Another coach, had the attitude that my daughter was not good enough to be part of her lessons. (Because she's a reserved and cautious rider, not an a*hole with spurs) One rider got kicked hard in the abdomen and required an ambulance ride, they were not pleased about the fact the mom called 911. (Insert another red flag what was over looked) They even said it was the child's fault she got kicked. I know being around horses is dangerous, but this barn has some very unsafe horses. Instead of an adult handling a difficult horse, they make children who don't have experience do it. Or the simple fact that with in the last year, my daughter has almost been ran over twice on horse back during a lesson due to another horse being allowed to run around with zero control while cantering. Communication is honestly non existent. Even on a good day. Also when you pay $40-50 a lesson and the certain coaches attention is more on their phone than the riders. Don't get me started on the "package deals". Prepay, but lessons were always canceled. That money is lost. A lot of other things have happened, but the most recent- my daughter helped out for two summer camps this year. First week seemed to have went fine. Second week, my daughter was accused of dumping manure twice in an area that it wasn't supposed to go (for the last 3 years, every thing was dumped in one spot just outside the one door, mainly due to laziness and improper equipment). She did it once, because that's where it always went. She was told. "Hey not there". She didn't do it again. Later that day, she was cornered and yelled at, accused of doing it a few times. She immediately texted me to let me know. NOTHING was mentioned to me when I got her at the end of the day. NOTHING was mentioned to me at lessons the following week. The week after is when it was finally brought up. Pretty much, they use you. Abuse you. And kick you out. If you want a safe place for your child to ride. This is NOT it. I wish I caught on sooner. (Did you know you can file a report with Safe Sport?) Before any one comes at me, my daughter has had a few other trainers wanting her to be part of their team. One being out in Florida and travels all over the east coast. Final part of my review, they owe my daughter unpaid wages for days worked. While it was considered working for either lessons or classes paid at the barn show. She was asked to leave before she was able to use her "Celtic Cash". Therefore, they owe her a pay check. (I will edit this review once I get that check and it clears. They have until July 31, 2023) In hind sight, I wish I had listened to the several people who told me to stay clear of this place. The toxic environment is not healthy. Updated: 10/30/2023 The Department of Labor ruled in my daughter's favor. I now have paperwork to file a judgment against Marilee and Celtic Cross. (She opted to ignore the DoL) my daughter is owed pay plus damages- they also broke it down to an hourly pay for the time she worked. Since I broke silence, several people have stepped forward to me in confidence about this place. The bullying, the harassment, the neglect. The lies! They aren't my stories to tell, hopefully in due time... it all will exposed. read more

I have literally been stewing over writing this review for months now. Months. I hate giving a place five stars, then having to go back later and give it anything less than four. But unfortunately, I have to give them three. (It was two, but as I progressed with this review, three seemed fairer to Tori and her staff.) I want to make something absolutely clear here. The daughter, Tori, is the most wonderful, professional business woman I have had the pleasure of meeting. She runs Celtic Cross like a well-oiled machine. MaryLee, the owner, on the other hand, is the downfall of the business. I know mentioning names is a bad thing, but I just really want the reader to know that this place really is great....but only to the extent that MaryLee allows it to be. The three stars I've given them are completely attributed to Tori, her staff, and the immaculate grounds. Their new barn is incredible. It's clean, it has anything and everything one could possibly need and more. Everything is organized...and did I mention, clean? (Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a 30-stall barn clean?!? It's freaking hard.) The pastures and arenas are always in pristine condition. (Side note: They have 80 acres of trails on their property too. Something no other horse boarding place has in the OKC metro area.) I was taking lessons from MaryLee twice a week during their adult riding lesson sessions. I really enjoyed it at first. Their horses are well mannered, and they have quality riding gear. I felt like it was a great fit until I noticed that I wasn't really learning -anything- from MaryLee's lessons. It was like experiencing a play, over and over again, with the same words being spoken for every performance. She would tell us which direction to go, and a few points about dressage. Every. Time. They were the same points. They never changed. I get the concept of really trying to teach people by repetitive nature...but not the same thing for weeks and weeks. And so my doubts began. MaryLee was always very complimentary on my style of riding, except for the fact that (multiple times) she insisted that my stirrups were too high, so she lowered them. Well, the stirrups are what keep you in the saddle. So if the stirrups are long, you end up flopping around in the saddle like a dead fish. So as I'm flopping about, she was always so complimentary. "Did that feel as good as that looked?" Was one of her favorite lines. Sure, it would have felt great if I hadn't been flopping around! Honestly, I was just so glad to be around horses that I would have just dealt with it and gone to private lessons or something instead. Until MaryLee got passive aggressive. I mean we're talking White Chicks, Mean Girls, any other movie that features passive aggressive people status. It was intense. They rent horses there, and a lot of them are the horses that Celtic Cross owns, so naturally, they try to rent their horses to customers to help with upkeep and costs. That is 100% fine, and I probably would have considered renting one of them if MaryLee hadn't been so gosh darn passive aggressive about me wanting to rent someone else's horse. Now. I can handle someone being passive aggressive to me. Rolls right off my shoulders. But when someone is passive aggressive to me, in front of the entire class, singling me out? That's where I draw the line. She didn't do it one time. She didn't do it twice. She did it -three- times, and by the third time, I threw in the towel. I stopped going. I'm not going to be humiliated by someone, in public, in front of my entire class, over their being pissed off that I wanted to rent a horse that wasn't theirs. Bottom line: If you're okay with renting one of their horses, and are okay with not really learning anything, just walking (lots...and lots of walking. Very little trotting, and even less cantering) in a circle for an hour--then this is the place for you. If you're looking for somewhere to board your horse that has fair pricing, and will take care of your horse as one of their own, this is the place for you. If you want trail riding and arena riding (both indoor and outdoor) this is the place for you. If you want to have a kids party, Tori is magical. She'll help the kids put sparkles all over the horses and decorate them up however the kids like, then lead them around the arena. It looked so fun, I was jealous! This is the place for you. If you want quality riding lessons, don't take them from MaryLee. I don't know if Tori does riding lessons, and if she does, take them from her. You'll learn a lot more and probably enjoy your time more. If you even *think* you may want to rent someone else's horse, look elsewhere. If you don't deal with passive aggressive people well, avoid MaryLee at all costs. I would go back if it wasn't for the owner. I would go back for Tori and the way she runs things. I would board my horses here in a heartbeat, but I wouldn't want to deal with MaryLee at ALL. read more

After a lot of thought, I decided to post this review because if I had this to do all over again, I'd want to read this review before seeking riding lessons for my kids here. For those looking for the bottom line, here it is: Marilee yelled at my kids in the middle of their lesson because they were crying and too scared to do what she was saying. She lost her temper and yelled at them to get off their horses and go home, that if they were still crying after however many lessons (~ 2 months worth), they should just go home - go home and not come back. She stormed off. And that was that. She has not spoken to us since. She has also not refunded the remaining lessons in our package. She never responded when I reached out to request this. We'd only used half of the package we'd purchased for each kid. I wish I had not subjected my kids to her teaching. This has been a disaster for us. Now my kids are scared to ride horses. For those looking for a little more: We were excited to start lessons at Celtic Cross. Our girls had only been on a horse a couple of times. I quickly noticed that each lesson was much the same. Marilee would get the kids on their horses and then sit at one end of the ring and holler instructions at them. Fine as it goes - that's how it works, right? It worked alright for some kids in the group lesson who already had some basics down. Our girls didn't know how to do the things she was hollering at them to do from a mile away. 100% beginners. She would get frustrated with them for not following instructions - they weren't being obstinate, they just didn't know how to do what she was asking. Rather than walk over and demonstrate how to do whatever skill, like actually show them, she would usually remain seated and continue to holler the same thing over and over. I wondered if this was going to work but didn't want to cut things off prematurely. Then there was a lesson about a month in when my kids both had a scary experience. Marilee could have prevented at least some of this: During the lesson, I noticed that one of my kids seemed to be sitting at an odd angle, sort of cocked to one side in the saddle. I watched for a moment and realized that her saddle wasn't cinched tight enough and was slowly slipping down the side of the horse. She realized it, too, and started yelling for help. I sprinted over and caught her just as she started to fall, amidst other horses going around the ring. She'd have fallen off (albeit going slowly) if I hadn't been there. In the same lesson, my other kid's horse started trotting when she wasn't ready to go that fast and my kid was too new at riding to know how to slow her horse. When she couldn't get control, she started to scream (beginner misstep) - obviously a dangerous situation. Again, I sprinted over, stopped the horse, got my girl to stop screaming, meanwhile leaving my other kid, who was still freaked out after almost falling off. Marilee was not far behind, but I was the one that caught the horse and stopped the screaming. It may be no surprise that after this, both girls were a lot more scared to ride and it was hard to get them back to the stable. And I was wondering if Marilee was able to control the group lesson and keep it safe. To her credit, Marilee called me afterward and offered us a semiprivate lesson - on her lunchbreak no less - and at the same rate as the group lesson had been. She said they needed to start at a more basic level than the group (I appreciated her recognizing that) and talked to me about how she particularly liked working with kids to overcome their fears and learn to ride. I was moved by her generosity and her willingness to help my freaked out littles, so we gave it a go. Fast forward a couple of months, and here they are getting yelled at and kicked out of lessons because they're still scared and crying. You can bet I am kicking myself. Anyone can have a bad day - I know we can all react in a moment. But it's just inappropriate to yell at kids in a lesson, let alone scared ones. And if you can't teach my kids, come talk to me privately - don't yell at them not to come back in the middle of the ring. Good grief. Any follow-up whatsoever would've gone a long way, and I don't know that I'd be leaving this review if she'd come round to talk about what happened or refund the remaining unused lessons. As it is, I cannot recommend Marilee as a riding instructor for kids. I wish we had known. read more

I have been riding here for two years now and been to four other barns but I have never felt so welcome and pushed to be my best than here. When I came here I just felt like I was always supposed to be here. The staff, Marilee, Tori, and Katherine, have and are all helping me excel in riding. If I had to leave for months, I would completely trust them with my horse. The facility is very well-kept and operated. The barn has twenty used stalls, but it seems as if there was two. The arena's are very clean and are not messy. I would completely recommend this barn to anyone who wants to learn to ride, or would like assistance or guidance through the experience. read more

Wonderful riding facility with reasonable rates in the OKC Metro. I moved to Norman from Lawton and CCEC was recommended to me by my trainer in Lawton. They have great lesson horses and monthly schooling shows that are not very expensive. The trainers are great and bring different knowledge and experience to the table to help nurture well-rounded equestrians. The other students and boarders have been nothing but nice. I am so happy to have found this place to ride! read more