Our experience with Inverness' owner Molly: My daugther took riding lessons with Molly and we loved her. My daughter went to a summer camp for a couple of weeks and when she returned Molly let us know that she doesn't have training horses available any more and that we need to lease a horse from her. Leasing a horse had never been our intention nor in our budget. We kept checking with her if she has a traing horse available and got the same answer every time. We had $600 paid unused tuition with her. I finally told her that I'd like a refund since she has no horses available. Molly told me then that she doesn't give refunds because it is an industry standard. I had not signed a contract or any other document re this standard and when paying no industry standard was introduced to me. She kept the $600 and even threatened me with her lawyer. read more

This is a complicated review to write as we were a customer for more than 6 months and the best way to describe it is, "ebb & flow". For starters we knew nothing about riding and reached out to several barns as our 12-year-old daughter was interested in riding lessons. After speaking with Molly, she convinced us that the best approach would be for our daughter to ride once a week. We were also sold on the fact that their stable was full of different horses, and we would have a standing lesson on Saturday mornings at 8am. Next, we were introduced to Morgan who would become our daughter's instructor. She was very nice and easy to work with. We rode with her for the duration of our time at Inverness and were very happy with her and the lessons she gave our daughter. If we only dealt with Morgan, our review would be much different. However, things started going downhill a few months ago when we were asked if we could have another student join my daughter's lesson. Reluctantly we agreed since we were told she would get an extra 10 min of riding time per week, but our preference was to stick with private lessons. After the one and only "group" lesson we went on vacation for a couple of weeks and when we came back, we went back to one-on-one lessons. We are not sure why the other student didn't join us again and we didn't ask as we preferred the one-on-one lessons (but later found out she had broken her spine during a lesson). Next, we were told that either the weather was not conducive to riding due to the rain (understandable) or there was not a horse or instructor available, so Inverness ended up cancelling or moving many of our lessons for the month of August. It was to the point that it started to become counterproductive because they would not let us know until the evening before and having an early Saturday morning time it made things difficult for us and it also hindered my daughter's progress. This led to us dealing more with Molly, if you were to speak with or text with her you will see she is short and to the point which can often be misconstrued as rude. We asked if we were able to be given notice beyond 12 hours, she was adamant and not willing to agree because she can't "control the horses or weather" and that comes across as very argumentative. Despite the negative impression and interactions with Molly, we continued to ride when they allowed us to as to not disappoint our daughter and hinder her progress more. This continued for over a month until about 2 weeks ago. We had a lesson scheduled for Saturday morning at 8 am as scheduled and then received a text from Molly on Thursday night stating, "Morgan is not available on Saturday and can your daughter ride on Friday night?" We already had a prior commitment which we rearranged and told her she could ride at 4pm to which she responded, "she already has that time filled." We then responded by telling her, "No problem, we will see you next week." and continued to eat our dinner and plan our weekend. About a half hour later, Molly sent us a follow up text stating, "upon further reflection, and given our mutual schedules, it makes more sense for you to find a different program." Flabbergasted, we asked her if she was serious because they continually cancel on us and try to move us around and we have been nothing but accommodating and tolerant. She then seemingly began to become more frustrated and made more excuses and ultimately made a disgusting accusation about me, personally. Knowing this would be the best for our daughter and family, we let her know that we would gladly move on once we were reimbursed for the lessons we paid for and that we would be sure to let others know about our experience. She responded by letting me know she would have her attorney (who is also a client) reach out to me if I did so. While it was very frustrating and unexpected to have to find a new stable to ride at, it was a blessing. Our daughter is now riding with a new stable and is very happy and progressing faster than she did at Inverness. I would some tips if you are looking for lessons and considering riding with Inverness: 1. If you do not own your own horse, DO NOT set up lessons with them. Had we known this we would have gone to where we are riding now. 2. Dealing with Molly can be exhausting, she clearly is great with horses, but not with people. Her take it or leave it attitude is not appreciated as I believe she forgets that the customer in this case is a 12-year-old girl who was made to feel less than when she was discarded. 3. When you pay Inverness, I would suggest using PayPal. It took me filing a claim with PayPal and a few weeks before I was refunded in full for the balance due to me. read more