Ponderosa Stables Inc — Local services in Phoenix

UPDATED Review: (Went from 1 Star to 5. See below for prior review and above for updated)

I was so bothered because again I’m on vacation and while I’m sitting in my car while I wait for my friends to finish the tour I wrote this prior review below. I felt led to call the establishment and just share my discontent with what just occurred. I will say that I was well received and for that I give a 5 star review. Pete the manager was so nice and understanding and even volunteered to come out with me next time personally if I’m ever in Arizona and to ask for him. He took accountability and also shared a different perspective on his employees. Pete is someone that was willing to want to hear the customers point of view but also advocate for his employees. I respect that wholeheartedly and he was willing to give me a refund and reassure me in this experience. This 5 star goes to the man who owns the business. At the end of the day the way someone receives disheartened customers matter and he received me well. Appreciated my post experience and if I ever recommend this place to anyone I’ll definitely say “talk to Pete! “ Overall this may just be an isolated experience but if anything happens feel free to talk to the owner he welcomes customers feedback very grateful that he was respectful and kind.

Prior Review: 1 Star I had a horrible experience here and I ended up not choosing to ride my horse. A few friends and I arrived to the stables a bit later than expected due to some personal difficulties. While we were running late me and my friends made several attempts to call the office to explain yet no one answered. We’re on vacation so I figured being in Arizona a Sunset ride will be so fun. One of the wranglers a female woman brown hair maybe upset at our late arrival was not the most welcoming. She explained how she will have to give us a quick rundown to go on the tour. I felt as if she seemed agitated. Customer service matters if this is the person that’s going to instruct me on how to ride a horse and she doesn’t seem willing it obviously puts a beginner in an unsettling situation. I felt as if my questions during her explanation weren’t welcomed. When she assigned us all a name for our horses I jokingly turned to my friend and said “hey I like your horse name better can we switch horses” she immediately said no we were not allowed to switch horses. Her tone of voice was off putting and in a snappy way. We are all adults here if I genuinely wanted to switch I would speak to the wrangler herself. The fact that I was jokingly talking to my friend and she inserted herself ima light hearted moment and made it sour with the negative tone she used left an even more unsettling taste in my mouth. I didn’t feel safe or supported in riding my horse so I chose to decline the horse service in spite of paying a hefty price to go. Maybe she was having a bad day so I’ll give grace to that. But for this to be my first experience riding a horse I didn’t have the space to be excited, curious, and calm all due to the female wrangler worker demeanor and attitude. To make matters worse my horse did seem a bit unstable and was dragging their feet and not listening as well as the other horses it seemed. I will say she redeemed herself by offering to walk me around the stable while she held the rope and did take photos of me when i requested. However, this was after my bad experience that made me walk away from the tour. I will not be doing this service again or recommending it wish I could have received a refund definitely left me sad...

Epic sunset ride through Arizona Desert.

The staff all seem to love what they do and have lots of respect for the business owner as expressed by multiple staff.

The horse all seem very well fed and cared for. They are also the calmest group I've ever been around. I felt safe in the saddle the entire time with no experience. The horses can get startled every now and then. Just the nature of the beast as ironic as it is. If you stay calm pull back on reigns, they'll get over whatever spooked them and continue calmly down the trail.

I knew where the trail was at all times and the guide is single file. Pro tip: get pics of your loved one in a turn so you can crop the others out.

We took the "T-Bone" ride. Although it's the only one I've done it seems to be one of the better selections. It's about an hour ride to a steakhouse. The steakhouse is about 40-50 per steak and has a good view. The ride back was night. We had a crescent moon and still had good visibility at 9pm.

I suggest wearing pants good shoes or boots and having nothing hanging from your waist. Light backpack maybe but I had a chest high inside jacket pocket with a zipper that I kept all my items in. You want your hands free and not at risk of losing things while you ride.

The Guides - We had the absolute pleasure to ride with Moses and Fern. I hope I got the names right! They were perfect. They are real, down to earth people who want to be there with you. They also enjoyed the ride. We were absolutely blessed with an amazing sunset. The Guides also relished in the moment, taking their own pictures and taking time to soak it in.

Later I learned that one of the other guides recently lost their Grandmother and they believe that they were up there painting that sunset.

This is when this experience became so much more to me than just a horseride. It became a personal spiritual experience I didn't know I needed.

I'm from Louisiana and I now live in Atlanta. Both my grandparents passed away in Arizona, they loved that part of earth and it seemed It became a part of their identity. This was my first time back to Arizona since they passed and now I can't help but wonder with joy if the native guides grandmother may have had some help painting this epic sunset for us.

I highly recommend this experience. We went to Sedona, another amazing experience but this grounded us like nothing I've ever paid for...

My boyfriend and I came here for my birthday and had a bad experience related to injuries from the ride and how staff handled it after.

The ride started off great, the guides were nice and we made our way through a fairly easy, but scenic route. My boyfriend was on a horse named Lefty—we asked if there would be any trouble with him since he kept aggressively nudging my horse’s backside and the staff assured us that he would be fine. As we approached the final downwards slope, Lefty lurched forward and bucked my boyfriend out of his seat so his lower back slammed in a pile of rocks on the ground, leaving him scraped and bleeding.

The staff leading the ride was clearly not experienced with handling a situation like this and kept saying he had fallen off the horse rather than getting thrown off, and asked if he wanted to get back on to complete the ride (he could barely walk…). They called another wrangler, Chris, to come on a driven cart and he was generally kind and started tending to medical aid for my boyfriend, but maybe not to the level needed on these extensive wounds. We appreciated his bedside manner. The manager, Pete, was exceptionally rude and was taking offense to us asking for a more experience team member to assist, kept implying that my boyfriend had fallen and that the horse hadn’t bucked him off, and initially said no refund was possible (we were able to get a partial refund). At one point he went into another room and slammed a door when he came back out. It was extremely amateur and disappointing customer service with not enough empathy or care for their riders, who are obviously not at the level of expertise as them. It felt like we were a burden for the harm rather than bring comforted for issue.

The real shock was that while assessing the bruising and scrapes again at home, we took a look at reviews and saw that ANOTHER PERSON WAS BUCKED BY LEFTY. So the team was knowingly putting people in danger and not acknowledging that this was a risk they took because it had already happened. Reading the review felt validating of the underwhelming care from staff who felt like they were willing to risk rider safety for a coin. Extremely icky feeling and no...