Horseback riding

[robin102978]

My boyfriend and I just got back from a romantic weekend. We went to a Bed & breakfast and a vineyard, and yesterday we finished it off with some horseback riding. I called the woman at the stable up about a week ago to make reservations and I can tell that she had a bit of an attitude. I made it clear to her that we were both inexperienced. She says thats fine because they cater to all levels.

So we get there yesterday to check in and we walk up to this same woman and we are standing in front of her, she's basically ignoring us for 3-4 minutes while she's bs'ing with other people. My boyfriend starts to speak up and she's talking right over him. I think this set the tone for me for the rest of the experience. Finally she acknowledged us and then we get set up on the horses. The guide gave me about 10 seconds of instructions which i couldn't understand and walked away. I had to ask my boyfriend to repeat what she said.

So I'm leading the pack right behind the guide and the whole ride, I couldn't do anything right. She keeps telling me not to get too close to her horse so when I try to slow my horse down, another guide in back is telling me I'm holding the reigns too tight. When we approach this clearing, the guide says now we are going into a trot and before I could prepare myself, my horse picks up speed. My feet fall out of the stirrups because my body is flailing all over the place. We did this about 4 times and each time, the guides kept telling me to keep my feet in the stirrups. Well I'm trying but it's hard when you have no control over your body, right?

The last stretch my horse goes from trot to gallop and I seriously thought I was going to die. I'm holding on for dear life, my feet aren't in the stirrups and so I have no leverage and my womanly parts are taking a beating. I felt like i was going to fall off a few times. When the horse slows down finally, the guide said, "wow, you're horse was doing some cantoring." I didn't know what that meant but I told her that it scared me a bit and she just laughed and turned away.

So now we are at the end and we ride the horses over to the fenced in area and we were told to ride the horses over to the water trough. After that a girl told me to ride the horse to the other side to another girl, which I did and when I got closer to her she was walking over the the wooden fence where they tie the horses up so I followed her and then she turns around and screams at me to not get too close to the fence. I think at this point I just lost it. I got off the horse and walked away. I was able to compose myself until we got to the car and then I started to cry a little. My boyfriend was concerned but he didn't know why. I talked to him later on and told him that I was a bit overwhelmed and frightened with the faster pace portion of the ride and I thought the staff was a bit rude and unhelpful. I guess I was just disapointed because I thought it was going to be relaxing and fun, but the whole thing just made me all tense. The last time I had been on a horse was maybe 15 years ago and it was a very slow ride. That was the only time I had been on a horse.

Sorry for the long vent, but I felt a bit silly for crying and I was wondering if anyone else has been on these types of trail rides and is it typical for them to pick up the pace like that, even for inexperienced riders? There was no warning beforehand that they would do that.

I think if the ride was kept at the walking pace, then I would have been fine. Or am I just being too sensitive?

[MissKat]

You are not being over sensitive at all. They knew you were inexperianced so should have spent time with you going through the basics. You definately shouldnt have been galloping either!

I would take this as experiance and never go back to these stables again! If you do decide to go riding again, explain your concerns to whoever is in charge and you will be able to tell pretty quickly if they will be able to cater for your needs.

[Lucky32]

You were not sensitive at all. I am surprised you didn't put them in their place for being so rude and insensitive. Hopefully this doesn't put you off to riding on horses again.

[Reptillycus]

I am sorry that you had this experience. Usually stables will put an inexperienced rider on an older, very calm and gentle horse that knows the routine trail ride by heart, and will just follow the horse in front of him/her, and you don't really have to do anything. I am glad you stayed on.
Horseback riding can be a wonderful thing, you could take some beginning riding lessons, at another stable, of course, if you want to learn to enjoy it. There is nothing else quite like it

[robin102978]

My horse was behind the guide the whole time and on the last stretch the guide decided to take off into a run and my horse followed suit. I think I was having problems with the stirrups because I'm quite short and perhaps the stirrups weren't high enough for me.

I wish I did say something at the time to the owner but I was so upset and on the verge of tears that I had to walk away. But I think I may give her a call to let her know what happened. Someone can really get hurt and perhaps she should re-evaluate how she sets up the rides. It seemed like there were people on the ride who had a range of abilities. Perhaps designating different times for different types of rides would help instead of grouping together people who's skills vary.

Anyway, I will do it again but now I know what questions to ask ahead of time.