Yanni's Horses — Local services in Zakynthos Municipality

Wow! We have just had the most amazing horse riding experience with Yiannis. My family of four plus another young lady from Austria went on the 3 hours ride & swim experience. Yiannis stable/ ranch is beautiful and you can easily see how well cared for his horses are. Our horses were all standing in the shade, saddled up and ready for us. Yianni took us riding through the olive groves and little back lanes. Stunning scenery. Going gently up hill. The horses were all well behaved and a real pleasure to ride. We occasionally broke into a trot as we wound our way uphill through the olive orchards. After about 45 mins we arrived at a lovely spot near the sea and tied the horses up in the shaded grove and took their saddles off. Yianni showed us where to go to walk down to the cove. We waited there and Yianni brought two of the grey horses down into the water. Here we spent the best part of an hour in the water, riding the horses. Taking turns to ride and even stand on the horses bare backs. It was the absolute highlight of the day. Yianni is such a lovely man. He knows his horses very well. He helped and encouraged my daughters to ride bare back. It was such immense fun for them. Yianni allowed us to take photos with our phones, but he also had a colleague who came along to the beach to take video using a drone and take some photographs. After an exhilarating hour in the sea, we dried off before saddling the rest of the horses back up. Then we took a lovely scenic route back to the ranch. More lanes and olive groves. The horses were beautiful, calm and very well trained with the odd car and other animals, that we met on the way back. Finally after 2.45hrs we arrived back at the ranch. After giving our horses a carrot treat each we were invited into the lovely bar area to cool off with a nice cold drink and sat chatting for a while about the amazing experience we had all just had. Yianni is a truly wonderful person. This trip is highly recommended by me and my family (husband and two teenage daughters) and well worth the E100 each. A truly...

Let me start by saying my review is based on personal preference and so this may be different for other people. Last time I was in Zakynthos (granted this was 2017) I rode at a different establishment and went swimming with the horses. We rode bareback with bridles on and actually had the horses swimming. It was a lovely experience. I wanted to do this again, and as Yanni’s was both closer and had good reviews, I booked here. I should have read the reviews more closely so that’s my fault. What you get here is a ride through olive trees, then dismount and walk down to a tiny concrete ramp into the sea. Three horses were brought down for everyone to share wearing only head collars and lead ropes, and then people took turns being on the horses. Yanni had two horses and his son had the other other one so when you got on there was nothing to hold on to and they got the horses to go in circles around them. You were encouraged to stand on the horses and to lay with your head on their bums. I get that for a lot of people this may sound fun but it’s not the experience that I came for and I did not want to stand on the horses backs, but felt uncomfortable when I said no because of being encouraged to do so. Most of the horses appeared to be in generally good condition, a couple looked a little skinny and had graze type marks on the face. Also, they were pulled quite roughly on the head at times. All in all, for me, this was not an experience I would want to do again, and would much rather have one similar to my first experience. As I say, personal preference and I should have read the reviews...

Very disappointed as we booked a 3 hour ride to the beach and swim with the horses. We arrived a couple of days before to find the place so we knew how far it was from our accommodation. Yanni was there and everything seemed OK, even though his English wasn't great but everything seemed to be all good. The day before he messaged my husband to ask if we would go at 5pm instead, which we said would be OK. We arrived at 4.45pm and was told that as we didn't arrive at 10am he went without us..... he denied any wrong doing at his end and at 1pm on that day he emailed to day they are running late, make it 6pm not 5pm. We were not prepared to wait and it was a 2 hour ride, not a beach visit. He made us feel like it was all our fault and my 11 year old was incredibly upset. We had been looking forward to this for weeks. We have now decided to use an alternative riding school near Laganas. We had an hour ride with Laganas before, and it was great, very professional, and horses were well looked after. Do...