Valley Park Riding School — Local services in Melbourne

I recently took my 5 year old granddaughter here for her birthday to have a 30 minute private Kindy lesson costing $90. We have been here in the past and experienced excellent service and quality lessons and have returned each year for the past few years for her birthday. This past Saturday we experienced something very different to our past experiences. When you pay $90 for 30 minutes of someone's time you don't expect them to sit down for half of that 30 minutes on a lunch break leaving your child to wander around the arena alone. The lesson was sub standard and the second half consisted of her being led around at a trot. She was not taught how to rise as she had been in the past and no other exercises or instructions were given. Essentially it was a pony ride..... a very expensive one. And then after the lesson we were rushed out as though on a conveyer belt. When I emailed to express my disappointment with the quality of our experience I was told the staff work hard and deserve to be able to eat along with a run down on other things that were irrelevant to the complaints in my email. I agree staff deserve time to eat but certainly not during the time that I am paying for a private lesson, staff should be getting scheduled meal breaks paid for by the company not by the customers. Essentially I paid $45 for this staff member to sit down and have her lunch break while she was supposed to be giving my granddaughter a private lesson. We were then offered an extra 5 mins to come back and let my granddaughter brush the pony to apologize for the way we were rushed out of the place knowing that it is a 2 hour round trip from Berwick for us to return. I'm assuming the place has had a change over in management since our last visit, so not only are the customers losing, the staff must be as well as they have to take their meal breaks during private lessons and the company thinks this is perfectly acceptable. We certainly will not...

I doing horse riding for the last 10 years, but this schools was the worth experience I ever had.

Starting form : No reception area where you can sit indoor and have some drinks or just wait till your lesson start They gave me horse 10 min late and instead of 30 min , my lesson was 20 min, and 7 min of 20 min - trainer was telling my how my tecnic is not good and I need to have many more private lesson prior I can start canter ( I was doing equestrian for 2 years earlier). I said you to the trainer they provided me witrh the horse 10 min late - I want to have full 30 min on the horse - they told me it is not their problem, because there is another client after me and I have to give the horse back. So rude and unprofessional.

Also 15 min grooming and greeting horse prior the lesson I was not given either.

I requested a refund of 50% straight after at the office -they told me I need to send them an email. And today i recieved an email - because i shared my opinion in google - they do not feel comfortable to give me money back.. Isn't it my right to tell peopel how i was treated and felt? Dont they have to provide me the time as i paid for?

Will never ever come back and would not recommend to anyone - if you want to learn how to ride - please go somewhere else.

My friend was having a lesson with another trainer -also very negative experience ( even her horse was not late).

money is not the most important, so i am happy for the school to have my money and not giving back but hope my review will help others while they are choosing for a...

There are a number of issues with this business. However, the lack of professionalism is at the top of my list as to my experience with them. My first visit was met with arriving, nobody greeting us or advising us of what we needed to do. I contacted the business to let them know what had occurred and we had a discussion about what happened. I thought I would give them another chance and my husband took my daughter. He said they seemed ok but had the view that they belittled some of the children in their lessons. So, we thought we would try one more time and maybe they were having a bad run. I arrived in the office waiting to check in where I was left for at least 5 -7 minutes, while I overheard who I assume was the owner or manager; was having a personal conversation in regard to some personal circumstances I would rather not have been present for. I left the office a few times returning and hoping I would just be checked in and moved on. Instead, I was left standing there waiting as the conversation kept going. While my daughter had a lesson I also observed the belittling that occurred in one of the group lessons. There was also an occasion with my own daughter. We have now tried another organisation.........we had induction, friendlier lessons and the horses are well cared for. I wanted to be fair and give chances for improvement after my first feedback. However, after my last experience in the office we will not...