Miller Equestrian Services - Escondido, California

Burnz F.

Miller Equestrian Services is the best place to take your kids to ride and learn about horses. The horses are very well taken care of and the teachers are super great. Ann & Frank takes care of the horses and the facilities very well and the prices are very reasonable. I highly recommend this place to anyone who wants to learn how to ride.

Emma X.

WARNING: DO NOT GO HERE!

They are grabbing money and no guarantee of the quality of the lessons.

This is the worst place we have been! Very bad experience at Miller Equestrian Service due to following reasons!

1. We were charged for 30 minutes lessons at a rate of $50. Other students pay a lower rate for 30 minutes lessons, but we were requested to pay the highest rate. They don't have a standard pricing policy.

2. Trainer Alina made the class shorter than 30 minutes, but requested us to pay the full amount of $50. This happened multiple times. They made the class shorter using the excuse that my kid was tired, even though my kid clearly told the Trainer Alina that she WAS NOT tired. Trainer Alina only spent 10 minutes with my kid for the 30 minutes class. The following week before the class started, I called the owner Ann to make sure my kid could have the lesson for 30 minutes. By the time we arrived there, Trainer Alina was very rude and said no longer teach my kid, which is due to the phone call I made earlier with the owner Ann. They randomly picked one high school student who is taking horse riding lessons there to teach my kid and requested us to pay the full amount of $50.

3.The people here are constantly rude.

They are unprofessional and rude trainers . Don't go there!

Celia L.

I have been taking lessons since Aug. 2023 with Alena and it has been an incredible experience. The entire team is very helpful and happy to teach. Alena is able to teach and make it so much fun at the same time.

Jason M.

Is there a way to give this place a zero? My daughter coming home crying cause the workers are mean, Stabbing horses in the neck with a hard pen. Read all the reviews of this place. This is a terrible terrible place. Do not take your horses or your children here. We go to a place in Lakeside now. My daughter is so so so much happier now. Learning instead of being berated.

keith A.

WARNING: DO NOT GO HERE!

My ten year old daughter wanted horseback riding lessons for her birthday. My wife found this place online and saw they did birthday parties where everyone gets to ride and have a lesson. Seemed like a good idea so we did it.

Sometimes the lessons were fine, sometimes they were disorganized and overbooked so our daughters would not have the best lesson. We would write it off and not think too much of it.

Our kids would occasionally say that one of the trainers was ‘being pretty mean’ during a lesson. Now let me make something perfectly clear - we are NOT coddling helicopter parents. We are strict and usually will tell our kids to just toughen up a bit and deal with. So when they would make these occasional remarks about the trainers or ‘Miss Ann’ being snappy or yelling at them we would tell them that’s just the way people are some times and they probably need to be a little tough on kids because horses can be dangerous.

So all that being said, there are still lines or boundaries you do not cross as a paid professional trainer in any sport or discipline. Last week ‘Miss Ann’ crossed that line.

Our thirteen year old daughter is no snowflake. She has broken bones, amassed numerous scars with barely a tear and is largely unfazed by ‘hurt feelings’. So when she finished a lesson and literally burst into tears, for her, it’s highly unusual. Here’s what happened:

First thing that day is they screwed up and overbooked so there were too many people, too many horses and not enough room. Our thirteen year old was riding inside the stable and attempting to maneuver around the overly crowded area with other people and their horses (and a bunch of dogs). Well, she got a little too close to ‘Miss Ann’ (about three feet) as she stood there talking to someone and said, “If you step on my foot I’m gonna make you get off your horse, you understand?” As she said this she literally jabbed the horse in the neck with a pen to make it jerk its head away from her. Then, when she got too close again (because of the overcrowding) ‘Miss Ann’ made her stop the horse and then proceeded to call her irresponsible, accused her of not trying hard enough and then like a scolding parent made her apologize with the whole, “What do you say?” routine. Sorry, but that is not her job as a paid horse trainer. To make things worse, she was berating her in front of 15 or so other people. One of the lovely things she said in her scold session was, “I going to slap your horse so he takes off running and throws you off!” I’m all for being firm and strict but a humiliating rant in front of a group of people AND threatening to do something that could get her seriously hurt to ‘teach her a lesson’ is 100% unacceptable and over the line. The reason she was having trouble navigating and controlling the horse was because it was too crowded because of ‘Miss Ann’s’ failure in organizing and booking.

But no, even that wasn’t enough. A bit later, ‘Miss Ann’ AGAIN stopped her when she got too close and started in with, “What did I tell you? Are you a smart girl? Do you have a brain? Well it’s not looking like it.”

Really? We are paying for this? Yeah, not anymore.

Don’t take just our word for it. Read through some of the reviews over on Yelp and you will see various mentions of the training being fine if ‘the trainers are in a good mood’ that day. Or the one review where a trainer aggressively yanks on a student’s helmet and says, “You like that? That feel good? That’s how your horse feels!” Normally I would write that stuff off as one lame or cranky trainer here and there but now we know that unprofessional demeaning morale comes top down from the owner herself - ‘Miss Ann’.

Take your business elsewhere folks.

Gina R.

My daughter learned to ride here and it was always an amazing experience. Anne & Frank were great.

Felicia M.

Do not recommend to go here. It may be cheaper than other places, but you get what you pay for. The people here are constantly rude and even called my daughter pathetic during one lesson.

Addy R.

I love it here. It is always so much fun, but at the same time hard work. It all pays off at the end. So much fun