My wife and I went for a trail ride at the cornerstone Ranch in Princeton ma.First time for both of us. We had a great time ,Everybody was so friendly and helpful. Beautiful scenery, fall foliage at its peak!! We could see Boston from the high point of the ride. The horses were calm and our leader was great.I would recommend this ride for all age groups(we are seniors)
I have been twice now and it is a great experience. The horses are well behaved (no run offs, refusals, race towards the barn etc antics), the tours are very nice and head through the woods of the berkshires. I took my sister for her 51st birthday and she was thrilled. The indtructors/guides do an excellent job of matching rider to horse. This is great for beginners/never-Evers as the ride is conducted purely at the walk.
I wish i could rate this place 0 stars. Its a pity I have to rate it so low as I love animals and admire people who devote their lives to rescue and care for them. However, I hope that the employees at this ranch treat horses better than they treat their customers. I spent an hour and a half getting there to be told that they were double booked and since I was 10 minutes late there wasnt a horse I could ride! They also refused to give me my money back telling that I should get in touch with the owner via email. After driving for an hour and a half and getting lost in the process, I arrived 10 minutes late for my reservation as the place is not easy to find. I tried calling to say that I was running 10 minutes late but kept getting a voice mail with an email address. I even sent an email while driving (very unsafe), but got no response. To top my frustration is not the fact that I ended up empty handed, but the way I was treated by the female employee. She was not only rude, but even got unnecessary abrasive and even aggressive. She never invited me in, showed the horses or even greeted me properly. She called me 'tardy' and told me to go hang out elsewhere and offered to come back in 2.5 hours if I wanted a different ride as they were double booked and there wasnt a horse for me. I believe it was the worst customer service experience I ever had. Its not the fact that they could not accommodate me after being late but the attitude and the unfriendly way the whole situation was handled I find unacceptable. And in all honesty, since I made my reservation 2 days in advance and paid for it, they could have picked up the phone or check their email to see why their guests are running late. Hope they care more about the animals and at some point start carrying about their customers.
I went to trail ride with my best friend. We both are quite familiar with horses since we ride horses for many years. Cornerstone Rach does appear to treat the horses well. Theses horses worked back to back after either an one hour or two hours trail ride. We got there and the horses had just finished going on a long trail and the very same horses were being used again, and again after the next group people showed up. They only had maybe 30 min break in between. The horses worked over 6 hours!!! And the hay they were feeding the horses looked molded and they didn't get plenty of water to drink. I will never return based on the way the horses were treated. The place was dirty and the horses looked tired and burnt out. They look lethargic. I think the people don't really care about the horses even though they claim they rescued the horses, and put them them to work.
They had a fire going to keep you warm and smores. The hot chocolate was plain and I added the chocolate from the smores for taste. So we started a little late and about 3 minutes into the ride the sled broke. We walked back to the starting point and went on another sled. These horses went 4 minutes (stopping so someone could move their car out of the way during this course) into the trail and didn't want to go any further. Everyone but one couple (because of the weight) stayed on the sled so the horses could finish the trail while we all walked back to the starting point again. They offered a third time down a narrow dirt road (the one you drove up to get there) and this road only had room for about 1.5 cars to drive down. It was cold and we had enough (about an hour total of 2 failed attempts) so we left before the third run. On the way out we backed our car up and waited a bit so they could finish the course. The snow was hard and the ranch wasn't prepared for it. Thanking us for walking back every time and not offering us a free pass back showed a little lack of motivation for customers.
went for a "romantic" sleigh ride purchased on groupon. Basically a cart ride while the driver talked the entire time. I had pictured a comfortable seat to sit with my sweetie and ride through the forest. It was two wooden benches driving up and down her driveway while she talked...nothing romantic about that. The "hot chocolate" was watered down Swiss miss and the s'mores makings were frozen solid...I just feel the experience was misrepresented-I paid a good amount of money for a half assed experience.
When the GPS directed us to the dirt road, I was a bit skeptical, but this adventure was great! There was a bonfire, s'more makings, hot chocolate and horses to visit while we waited for our sleigh/wagon ride (there was no snow so we needed wheels!). On the ride we learned about the horses, horse and wagon transportation history and how to drive the wagon! Even though it as bitter cold, we had a wonderful time. Worth the crazy long drive to get there!
First I believe the family at Cornerstone Ranch was very nice. We bought 10 tickets for 8 friends (part of our Xmas gift to them) believing this would fill the Sleigh with only our group. Brought flasks of "holiday cheer" and some adult holiday music. Well after we all got on a family with three small kids also got on. While it didn't "destroy" our ride I wish we would have been informed differently as we were prodded to buy out the time slot and we could have saved 50 bucks. I would bring my granddaughters, more of a kids ride. Pss Angus (Australian cattle dog) was awesome. .
I took my teen niece for horseback riding at Cornerstone Ranch. We got the groupon for 2 people for 2 hours for $70. It was definitely worth it. The area is absolutely beautiful, especially when the leaves start to change. The staff, Sue and everyone else, were very polite and knowledgeable without being pushy or over the top of teaching us how to ride (this was our first time). I gave it 4 stars and not 5 because I really wish we would have trotted or galloped with the horses even for a few minutes. Otherwise we had a great morning ride! :) I would recommend!
My wife, daughter and son went riding this past weekend and the owner was very friendly and her assistants made it fun for my son who was riding for his first time. My daughter is an accomplished equestrian and she enjoyed spending time "just plodding along" as some bitter person wrote. I don't know what people expect out of a local trail ride. Maybe they should try a dude ranch. I would recommend Cornerstone to anyone that wants an enjoyable hassle free riding experience.