My children had a harrowing, traumatic experience yesterday at Double Mountain Horse Ranch. I urge you not to let your children near this place, which is a safety hazard for small children, as the staff do not appear to understand or implement basic protocols for working with horses and kids. Here's our story, which resulted in my children screaming hysterically as we were leaving the ranch.
My daughters, 7 and 5, and I have been around horses multiple times throughout our lives. We aren't expert riders, and my kids are young, but they are learning and have been on horses several times. We made reservations for a 90 minute horseback riding trip, which given my children's ages was of course going to be fairly steady and basic. We got there, and they put my five-year old daughter on a horse that they said was the calmest one. I held on to the lead for a while and so did a staff member. However, at some point, the staff member let go and the horse -- I wouldn't say it bucked, but it started running in the pen and my daughter was sort of shaken off the horse. At that point I thought: "Okay, she's upset but fine, and the important lesson here is to get back on the horse." For sure, I wanted to make sure the horse was okay and that this really was an appropriate horse for a five-year old. I asked the staff member to please make sure this doesn't happen again (let's not let go of the lead, especially if there's any question!), asked if this horse had a history of this, asked if this really as an appropriate horse, and we worked to calm my crying five-year old down and put her on the horse. It took a few minutes, but we got her back on.
I held the lead for a few minutes, and then gave it back to staff member. I got up on my horse. A few seconds later, that same horse, with my five year old on it, bolted out of the pen and started galloping fairly quickly away from the pen over the hill, uncontrolled. My five-year old, to her credit, knew enough to hang on tight and hung on for a little while. But she's five. She was thrown off the horse onto rocks, face first. I of course ran over and picked her up. She was fine, but pretty scraped up on her face. Thankfully. It could have turn out differently. Of course, she was screaming hysterically.
At this point, my five-year old's trust in horses has been destroyed. My seven-year old daughter was screaming, having seen her sister thrown off a horse that we had been assured was great for kids. I took both kids and left.
The point here is not that I think horses are always predictable. If that had been my horse, I would have known how to handle it fine. It might have been okay for a teenager. But the staff knew my kids' ages and riding levels. At a ranch, you should know your horses, and you should also fully understand basic safety protocols, especially when kids are involved. One of these is understanding when to hold the lead and when not to. And, having horses on staff that you are confident are appropriate for age levels, not just guessing as to which horse might be best (which in retrospect is what it seemed happened).
Double Mountain Horse Ranch needs a few things. First, an inspection from whatever agency regulates it, as to its training and safety protocols. Second, it needs to examine its training and staff expectations. Third, it needs to evaluate if it's going to serve kids: if it's simply not set up, given its horse population, to serve people younger than, say, 14, then that's fine, but it needs to carefully evaluate whether it's appropriate to serve a younger population. And fourth, if it's not going to take basic steps to train its staff on basic safety protocols and protect children, the business should be shut down. What happened is inexcusable. My daughters' physical health, at this point, thankfully appears to be okay. But it was a traumatic experience for both fo them, and trust in horses and ranches will take longer to come back. Our trust in this business certainly never will. read more