Would you ask for a refund?

[mariew]

You can definitely get RS horses that are near unrideable and don't want to move, and have just had enough of riding school life. Not fair to the horse and not fair to the rider. It has happened to me more than once and it is really frustrating because you feel like you cannot ride when you know you are a fully capable rider, even if not a gp standard one.

Personally I wouldn't ask for a refund, but I would make a point next time of booking that you found the last lesson disappointing and you don't want to ride that particular horse again.

 

[CMcC]

I think legally you created a contract in the phone conversation to have a lesson with X instructor on Y horse. The riding school did not deliver the contract as agreed, or a suitable alternative, so you have a right to a refund or next lesson free.

 

[Red-1]

I understand your disappointment, but would not ask for a refund. I think that by accepting the different instructor and horse at the time, and the half a school, you would be deemed to have accepted the changes. A bit like eating the whole meal at a restaurant, then complaining and demanding a refund with an empty plate before you.

That being said, when ringing for the next lesson, I would tell them on the hone that yo were disappointed that you didn't get the lesson you booked last time, and ask for what you want and to be contacted beforehand if they need to cancel, so you don't travel.

 

[Regandal]

Definitely ‘feedback’ to them about how disappointed you were, and if you’re in a brave mood perhaps mention the excessive whip use on the horse making you uncomfortable. I would imagine the poor horse didn’t enjoy it much.

 

[ycbm]

I think it's a standard size. Is that 40 x 20 metres? Not as large as some I've been in. All of the private lessons I've had before have just been me in the school, so I wasn't expecting it to be divided in half down the middle. But I will ask them about this, because maybe I've just been lucky until now to get the whole school to myself.

I would not share a 20x40 split into half for a solo lesson I was paying £1 a minute for unless it was a lunge lesson.
.

 

[Scotsbadboy]

You say you didnt learn anything or get anything but upset from this lesson but you clearly have learnt a lot from it. You've learnt you dont like sharing the school, you begrudge paying £1 a minute for instruction on a horse thats dead to the leg (says more about you than the horse) and you wont want to be instructed by this person again. I'd say that was a pretty productive lesson and experience. No, i dont think you should be asking for a refund!

Learning to ride is all about creating positive experiences and half the fun is learning to get the best from whatever horse you are sitting on. I think its important to ride different horses, especially if you plan to have your own one day. Turn this into a positive, you have gained valuable knowledge from the experience.

 

[Elf On A Shelf]

So the horse has gone from a plod to nappy to bolting ... wow! Special horse!

 

[Regandal]

You say you didnt learn anything or get anything but upset from this lesson but you clearly have learnt a lot from it. You've learnt you dont like sharing the school, you begrudge paying £1 a minute for instruction on a horse thats dead to the leg (says more about you than the horse) and you wont want to be instructed by this person again. I'd say that was a pretty productive lesson and experience. No, i dont think you should be asking for a refund!

Learning to ride is all about creating positive experiences and half the fun is learning to get the best from whatever horse you are sitting on. I think its important to ride different horses, especially if you plan to have your own one day. Turn this into a positive, you have gained valuable knowledge from the experience.

That’s unfair. The instructor couldn’t get a tune out of it either. At that level I would expect a school horse to walk, trot and canter without too much work.

 

[Scotsbadboy]

That’s unfair. The instructor couldn’t get a tune out of it either. At that level I would expect a school horse to walk, trot and canter without too much work.

I havent read the whole thread, i have work to do but its a public forum and the OP has asked for opinions, i have given mine based on the original post. Thank you for your input though, im sure the OP has found it useful!

 

[Miss_Millie]

That’s unfair. The instructor couldn’t get a tune out of it either. At that level I would expect a school horse to walk, trot and canter without too much work.

Totally unfair. I called up and the woman on the phone admitted it was a colossal mess up. 1, I should not have had half the school. That is for grade 1 only, she said I should have had the whole school and got put in a grade 1 lesson. She said the person who I booked in with wrote down nothing other than my name. My boyfriend was in the room when I booked and can confirm that I specified instructor, horse and my grade. It shouldn't have been difficult because I ride weekly with them and my instructor knows me, knows my ability, knows the range of horses I ride which are suitable for what I'm working towards.

Whoever was working on reception that day put me in a grade 1 lesson with a grade 1 horse. As a relatively new client, how was I supposed to know until I was well into the lesson that I wasn't even meant to be in that situation?

I did not ask for a refund but they completely agreed that it was a total mess up by whoever booked me in.

 

[Miss_Millie]

You say you didnt learn anything or get anything but upset from this lesson but you clearly have learnt a lot from it. You've learnt you dont like sharing the school, you begrudge paying £1 a minute for instruction on a horse thats dead to the leg (says more about you than the horse) and you wont want to be instructed by this person again. I'd say that was a pretty productive lesson and experience. No, i dont think you should be asking for a refund!

Learning to ride is all about creating positive experiences and half the fun is learning to get the best from whatever horse you are sitting on. I think its important to ride different horses, especially if you plan to have your own one day. Turn this into a positive, you have gained valuable knowledge from the experience.

I think you should go back and read all of my posts before commenting. This response just sounds really condescending.

 

[Red-1]

I am glad it is all sorted and it sounds like it won't happen again.

 

[Scotsbadboy]

I think you should go back and read all of my posts before commenting. This response just sounds really condescending.

Ok I've gone back and read through the whole thing .. that's a few minutes of my life i wont ever get back! Im so glad you got it all sorted.

 

[conniegirl]

You say you didnt learn anything or get anything but upset from this lesson but you clearly have learnt a lot from it. You've learnt you dont like sharing the school, you begrudge paying £1 a minute for instruction on a horse thats dead to the leg (says more about you than the horse) and you wont want to be instructed by this person again. I'd say that was a pretty productive lesson and experience. No, i dont think you should be asking for a refund!

Learning to ride is all about creating positive experiences and half the fun is learning to get the best from whatever horse you are sitting on. I think its important to ride different horses, especially if you plan to have your own one day. Turn this into a positive, you have gained valuable knowledge from th

i would not be happy for that to happen in a lesson at all.
being unable to get a sour horse forwards is not a reflection on a rider particularly on one who is still learning.
Even an advanced rider can struggle and you don’t learn anything from riding those horses. Infact one can do damage to your riding, going from learning to keep your lower leg still to having to ponyclub kick and beat a horse into a trot can ruin your position!

Your quite frankly nasty posts say more about you then not being willing to beat a horse does about the OP

 

[Scotsbadboy]

i would not be happy for that to happen in a lesson at all.
being unable to get a sour horse forwards is not a reflection on a rider particularly on one who is still learning.
Even an advanced rider can struggle and you don’t learn anything from riding those horses. Infact one can do damage to your riding, going from learning to keep your lower leg still to having to ponyclub kick and beat a horse into a trot can ruin your position!

Your quite frankly nasty posts say more about you then not being willing to beat a horse does about the OP

Your personal insult over the internet doesnt mean anything to me conniegirl.

 

[teapot]

By all means send an email and share you thoughts. However just from the other side of the fence/desk/computer screen:

- Horse allocations. Like doing sudoku blindfolded! Your usual horse may have lost a shoe/not right/rare day off/needed for another client who might have needed said horse's ability/demeanour/mane colour more than you did. Yes it sucks but it happens. Balancing the needs of multiple clients versus x number horses on y amounts of workloads equals one of the hardest things I have ever done/continue to do, and I spent four years doing high level research...

- Instructor allocation. The change without telling you is poor form. However your usual instructor (especially if you're not 100% guaranteed that person) every week may have had to leave work for reason x, needed to handle y horse for something, last minute change of yard schedule. Again it sucks, but unless you are guaranteed that person (and it's in writing somewhere), it can happen. It of course just been simply a mistake.

- Sharing arenas. Acceptable depending on circumstance. You can have more than a decent lesson in a 20 by 20 space with the right horse and lesson content. In fact it does people a lot of good re accuracy and discipline. Again not idea if you wanted a canter down the long side but again, maybe they're trying to up lesson provision post lockdown, maybe another arena had something wrong with it (it's a nightmare if you're waiting for an arena fence to be made safe for example). In my old job we absolutely did our best not to share arenas, but that 1% time where it's a case of run the lesson or cancel, we gave the clients the choice, in the smaller arena at least. Didn't matter in the others.

Also sounds like instructors have no communication with their office/admin staff which is a bad bad way to run a riding school. I will say £30 for a half hour isn't that expensive in real terms of going rates currently, and you may consider going elsewhere, spending more and getting a better all round experience

 

[Kaylum]

Ask for a refund or a free lesson. As soon as you were upset the instructor should have stopped the lesson and asked you to dismount. They should have then got the manager and dealt with your situation.

£30 for half an hour private lesson should be delivered as a half hour lesson. You are their customer and pay their wages.

Customer service is what we should be teaching instructors and riding centre staff and owners.

Having run a riding school we always made sure our customers came back by providing the best experience and if someone was unhappy we would make sure something was done about it.

If you book a horse and it was not available it should have been explained to you, the same with the instructor.

If we had a horse that was unresponsive and was only for novices we wouldnt have a horse that was unresponsive and only for novices. The horse obviously has shut down and not enjoying their life. Its actually quite cruel from a welfare point of view.

My advice go to somewhere that actually cares about their customers and that they get a good experience.

Pretty sick of poor customer service in the equine world, maybe I need to start some courses up.

 

[jkitten]

Glad you got it all sorted!

Obviously the horse/instructor combo was not acceptable, but just a comment on the arena size: You can absolute have a great lesson in 20×20. One of the best lessons I've ever had was when my usual instructor was on holiday and his replacement took me to the 20×20 mini school to just work on transitions. I was surprised and ready to be peeved at first, but honestly it was amazing! I got so much out of that lesson.

 

[SusieT]

In the circumstances you describe I would certainly ask for a refund -not for the school sharing but for the fact you changed day for instructor and asked specifically for a particular set up which they said they would do and then didn't provide and didn't tell you it wouldn't happen as booked.

 

[SusieT]

ps- I would also be considering challenging their use of an old, probably unsound horse as that sounds like a welfare issue.

 

[canteron]

I havent read all the posts but to me £30 for the horse you want, the instructor you want and a whole school is quite demanding and doesn’t leave much profit for the school.
Just say the instructor costs £15 then insurance, keeping the horse, maintenance rates, etc on the school. If they make £5 I would be surprised.

So maybe a bit of reality, running a riding school is only for the brave (so many have closed down over Covid), no one makes a fortune doing it and inevitably you have to deal with an avalanche of issues, so any ‘complaint’ should be made with understanding that sometimes it isn’t going to go your way and maybe you should just clock it up to experience.

 

[Equi]

You learned something, you don’t like slow plod backwards horses ?

I’ve had a similar lesson but in my case I had asked for a horse with 3 legs cause I was working on my confidence. Said horse (who had 4 legs) was so frustratingly unresponsive that my want to make them go stripped me of bad confidence lol so whislt it was a bad lesson learning wise it taught me a lot about what I actually don’t like in a horse so even though my nervous side says I want a plod, I actually like them with a bit of go.

 

[Fruitcake]

I havent read all the posts but to me £30 for the horse you want, the instructor you want and a whole school is quite demanding and doesn’t leave much profit for the school.
Just say the instructor costs £15 then insurance, keeping the horse, maintenance rates, etc on the school. If they make £5 I would be surprised.

So maybe a bit of reality, running a riding school is only for the brave (so many have closed down over Covid), no one makes a fortune doing it and inevitably you have to deal with an avalanche of issues, so any ‘complaint’ should be made with understanding that sometimes it isn’t going to go your way and maybe you should just clock it up to experience.

It’s not really demanding: the riding school set their prices, not the OP. They set their policies- in this case that the clients are encouraged to stipulate the instructor and horse, and have admitted that, other than for beginner lessons, they allocate sole use of the school for private lessons.

I don’t think anybody disputes that running a riding school is difficult and not going to make anyone rich quick. It’s not up to the clients to determine the profit margins, however. In this case, the OP was not given the lesson agreed at booking; she didn’t “demand” anything above the riding school’s own usual procedures.

 

[Dave's Mam]

OP changed her arrangements to accommodate the school so she could have her choice of instructor & this was not honoured. I would say that she's not being "Demanding".