Editor Pick
Horseback Walking -- Middle Creek Riding Stables
- September 10, 2006
- Rated 5 of 5 by
Vicho from Leicester, United Kingdom
Horseback riding was on the top of the list of activities I wanted to do in Smokies. There are many options. Just walk around downtown and pick leaflets with discount coupons.
Soon you will find out that prices everywhere are the same—after all wonderful discounts-around $20 an hour.
To choose the best stable to ride with, you have to have other selection criteria. I like water, so I wanted to ride around the lake. This got me down to two options, Douglas Lake Stables and Middle Creek Stables.
The Douglas Lake Stables collaborates with a local shear program and therefore must have many customers. If I didn’t want something, it was to ride in the group of 50 people, so my choice was Middle Creek Riding Stables.
I phoned them a day before riding to find out about reservations-no need. Super! When I appeared the next day there-Oh, big surprise! We did not expect you! Did you make your reservation? “No, I did not. I called you and you said there was no need” OK, OK, it will take some time to get the horses ready.
It took 45 minutes! When the horses were ready, we had to jump on them from a ramp-very degrading for me, but OK.
The “ride” started. If horseback walking can be called a ride! These horses are trained to walk one after other at a stable slow speed. Horrible! There were only experienced riders in my group, but the guide would not let the horse run. Not even in the places safe and made for a bit of air in the hair.
Even if I was disappointed with American horseback “riding,” the nature around was very nice. Everything looks different from the back of the horse. Even the lake looked more like a pond, but I am sure that’s just the horseback-view effect.
But not to be sarcastic, I got to be in the woods on the horse for over an hour (paying for two), and the woodland and the valleys scenes were very nice.
From journal Active in Smokies