Centro Ecuestre Pegaso — Attraction in Órgiva

I have very mixed feelings about my working holiday here. Firstly Becky is lovely & very approachable. She was friendly, showed genuine interest in my own horses & was very helpful when asked, giving me info on the local area, what to do on a day off, taxi/bus details & made sure I had lots of breaks. She took me into town with her daughter to see a circus one evening & cooked a shared meal when she didn’t have to after I decided to leave early. The area is stunning & the town is within walking distance with supermarkets & shops though I wouldn’t want to walk this route in the dark. There’s strong Wi-Fi signal in the land rover & my lunches provided every day were nutritious. However for me the stay was very lonely. There are no other instructors or employees nor any other volunteers staying while I was there. There were only two lessons taken in the 5 days I was there. Becky went out for the day several times to run errands or spend quality time with her daughter so it was long hours alone for me. She did tell me about a cafe where travellers go to help me meet more people but working hours are still lonely. The bar/social area next door mentioned on the website has been closed for months. If spending lots of time alone or with only a small number of people isn’t something you enjoy I wouldn’t recommend a working holiday or at least come with a friend/ask Becky when others are staying so you can book for then. Becky had an appointment in Granada & was planning to stay overnight as ‘it’s a lovely place to be’ so a lot of responsibility was placed on me. I don’t think she would do this with someone who is not experienced with horses but it is worth knowing that I was left to feed the 8 horses & work with them completely independently a lot which is a lot of responsibility with horses you don’t know. Becky knew in theory that I was experienced with horses but she was happy to leave me in sole charge of her horses despite knowing me for a very short time & with little evidence of how I actually am with horses. The horses were lovely though I have real concerns about their condition – most are clearly underweight & have rubs/sores which go untreated day to day. The converted land rover was basic as described. It is off grid so the only light comes from a solar powered bulb which runs out after around 1 hour & fairy lights. As I stayed in mid-October it went dark quite early meaning a lot of time spent in the dark. It was also difficult to cook because the portable gas hob/oven/grill was unreliable as the flame often went out. My first morning I ate stale cornflakes from a mug with my fingers as there was no cutlery/bowls in the van & the cornflakes were the only food left for me. The mugs I had were filthy – one had a layer of old milk in the bottom as they hadn’t been washed up. I was told to check the caravan for more cutlery & found some left outside. It isn’t clear if she feels it’s her responsibility to check that basics like cutlery are in place & clean for the next arrival. The land rover & shared bathroom also weren’t clean though the bed was comfortable. Becky booked an airport transfer for me but neither myself or the driver had any details of the other so finding my driver was difficult. I arrived at 6:30pm and later found out it counted as one of my 4 days off. I booked 2 weeks there & left after 5 nights. I received two 30-minute rides on the arena one of which Becky left during the middle of to collect her daughter having booked the 10-hour riding package. While I’m sure I would’ve had the other 9 hours had I stayed I didn’t get a refund of the €300 for those hours as all holidays are non-refundable regardless of circumstances/if the advertised experience has been delivered. Overall the working holiday was more for Becky’s benefit than the client’s & although I’m an independent 19yo I felt left to fend for myself. I think the name working holiday gives the impression that the stay will be centred around the client & the website makes it look better than it is. It's no surprise I won’t...

I have been staying at Pegasus Riding Centre for about a week in September 2023 as a working volunteer (volunteering + 10h riding) and I had a great time! I stayed in the Land Rover which was (of course) not a 5-star luxury accommodation but exactly what I signed up for, I had everything I needed and really enjoyed having my own little cosy space. Regarding the food I got easy breakfast supplies (bread, butter, cereal, milk, …) and a lunch box for each working day; dinner was not included - again, all as said on the website. There were two supermarkets just a little walk from the riding centre, so sorting out my own dinner was really not a problem at all…and because it was said in the program description that dinner would not be included, I was prepared to be responsible for my own evening meals anyways. I came from Malaga Airport and thanks to Alsa buses the Riding Centre was easily accessible even without a car or some sort of private transport. My tasks included feeding, un/tacking, cleaning/organizing stuff, poo picking etc. - once again, just as advertised beforehand on the website. Coming to the most important part - the people, the horses and the riding - I have nothing but positive feedback to give: Becky was lovely and very helpful throughout my entire stay and whenever I needed something or had a question, she was approachable and tried to help. She also asked regularly whether everything was fine and how I was feeling about my stay. Her riding lessons were honestly amazing, I’m still processing all the things I’ve learned in just above 1 week(!) and I would have never considered possible to make such progress within this very short period of time. I went on 3 treks (1h, 4h, 2h) and very much enjoyed all of them. The places and viewpoints we went up to were some of the most amazing and stunning pieces of earth I’ve been to yet… and getting there just by ourselves and the horses was a pretty memorable experience. I’ve ridden different horses during my stay and all of them were exceptionally calm & reliable. Even though I’m definitely neither the most experienced nor a remarkably fearless rider, I never felt unsafe or scared throughout the entire time. So overall I can only recommend visiting Pegasus Riding Centre - whether for treks, riding lessons or volunteering. If one has read (and come to terms with) the conditions published on the website, I can’t imagine why you shouldn’t have an amazing time there and make memories you’ll probably remember for a life time. Thank you Becky for having me and for making last week so special to me. I will keep you, the horses and the Riding Centre in very good memory and hope to be able to come around for another...

PLEASE BE AWARE AS FUTURE VOLUNTEER: if you want to volunteer at this farm at least give it several good thoughts and read previews reviews on here! I can sadly only agree to the previous bad reviews about the volunteer experience and were shocked when I arrived back in August.

The work itself with the animals is great and Becky clearly knows horses and everything connected very well. And also the contact before my stay was very kind.

However, the pictures posted by Romi on here speak for themselves: the caravan where you’ll stay is a health hazard. Not only is everything dirty and full of black fungus in the corner but also kitchen and cupboards are about to fall apart and unusable. Of course you know that living and working on a farm will involve bugs and dirt but sleeping in a caravan that even has a hole in the roof where it rains in .. is simply not acceptable. Besides that I also only was provided with lunch, which unfortunately contained rotten tomatoes and was only allowed to keep food in an extremely dirty fridge that reeked of the rotten food remains. The sanitary conditions of the bathroom were so terrifyingly dirty and are not even worth mentioning. So I tried really har and unfortunately had to quit after four days to protect my health.

I know Becky will most likely refrain from everything that is being said here and will blame it on young age, exaggeration, unrealistic expectations or call these problems “easy fixes”. I have lived through this experience myself and know what it means to work on farms with animals. And never have I ever experienced something like that. Still, I tried to stay four days

Even after talking about the poor sleeping and sanitary conditions in person Becky denied these conditions (even the fungus and hole in the roof) and told me that “a farm Is no Airbnb and that I came to this farm to contribute and not for vacation”. So it became apparent to me that we probably live in very different realities and that staying the full three weeks would be hazardous for my health.

All I would like to say is that the previous volunteer reviews are sadly real. So if you still choose to come, I simply want to raise awareness about this :)

Even though this review might be declared as false accusation: I truly hope that Becky will use this feedback to drastically improve the volunteer experience. Of course volunteering on a horse farm is no Airbnb experience but basic needs should be met in any case. Otherwise the farm itself is cute and the work with the horses will be hard but could...