That riding school shouldn't charge me for this?

I mean you presumably weren't going to say anything controversial to them - just where to find your lesson/instructor? 😂 It's not like you were offering them sweets to go for a drive with you...

This is all so true 😂

To be fair, with ever increasing insurance costs and the general overheads of running a riding school, it’s an increasingly poor business model. It’s not surprising that customer service is poor when the margins are tight and can’t really support the staff necessary. Establishments are shutting down all over the place. It’s a rubbish situation for everyone.

The riding school I livery my horse at has just axed their receptionist/office lady as a cost saving measure, because all bookings now (in theory) are made online via EC.pro which is an app loads of riding schools use. That's fine as it goes and I totally get that costs are spiralling for many schools, but now when people turn up all there is available is a (not always fully updated or indeed updated at all) whiteboard showing the teachers, lessons and horses for the day, and there's no-one available in the office to manage all the inevitable queries and issues, plus newbies, beginners, kids and the generally clueless have no idea where to find their horse (the stables all have names on but only roughly 5% of the names match the horse so that's no help 🙈 and often you'll just get a vague instruction, oh 'polo' is the little grey on the left hand row, cue a whole row of little grey ponies, which is he???), whether they're meant to tack up themselves (how if so/where is the tack?), where to go for their lesson and so on.

Every weekend now I have to spend some time wrangling the teenage helpers into actually helping clients who have often been hanging around the office or yard looking lost for quite some time with no-one speaking to them or asking what they need, and I don't even work there, in theory I'm paying to be there too! The teachers usually will come up to the yard to find a missing client eventually but they're in back to back lessons so the time spent locating client, fitting hat and boots, locating horse and tack, getting down to arena, can end up coming out of the clients lesson time which is a bit of a swizz IMO, the office lady used to sort all that out ahead of time or whip up a child to do it for you...

It does sound pretty disorganised tbh, the school I use would know who was booked on and would be asking where the missing rider was just before the start of the lesson.
That said I absolutely do not understand why you didn't just ask the kids or go and check the arenas? It surely can't be that big that you couldn't have had a quick walk round to see if you could spot the lesson.
Also, how do you book on for your next lesson/hack if there is nobody in the office? 🤔

And please do feel free to come over and post in the tack room in future, yes there are some (current and previous) horse owners over there but lots of non-horsey parents to pony mad kids, adult returners to riding or wannabe riders/curious beginners or just general horse lovers, it's generally a friendly and supportive place, you won't be ostracized for not planning to buy a horse (quite the reverse, tack room people generally endeavour to put off would be first-time owners as much as possible!). only horse people get the particular madness of riding schools and livery stables for sure

I'm sorry you had that experience but I think OP, the trouble is that as you are finding, riding schools in general, and indeed the vast majority of the horsey world just are truly, terribly bad at customer service. Really I can't emphasize this enough. At best they're flakey and poor with communication, at worst they're under the impression they're generously granting you a tremendous favour by allowing you anywhere near their precious horses in exchange for £££ and anyone demanding any modicum of usual politeness in exchange is an unreasonable/abusive karen! Ironic given how much money you spend, but you really do get used to being treated like a piece of dirt, perhaps the more you spend the more dirt-like you become in their eyes 😂

I think it's because horse people in general are not people-people, all their time and care and attention goes to the horses and the people/customers are an inconvenient extra. In very few other industries is it not only acceptable but normal for the staff to be shy/silent pre-teens supervised by a shouty furious dragon and for paying customers to be regularly berated for breaking rules they had no idea existed or left to guess important matters such as where their lesson is, who is teaching them, what horse they're riding, which tack the horse should wear and are you meant to tack up yourself or fetch a member of staff etc etc.

Sadly I think if you like the school you probably need to chalk this one to experience, if you've booked a lesson do not leave the premises without speaking to an adult in authority, they aren't going to give you good/normal service on a plate and not will being super-polite and reasonable get you better service (because the bad service is not personal), you need to get a bit bolshier...

Op you like the yard.
I'd cough up avoid bad feelings. And be more proactive next time. Don't be scared to ask the kids if they know where the instructor is.

In my 20s I regularly rode at 3 different riding schools, moved because of schools closing as insurance costs went up, and occasionally at a couple of others.
All schools seem to assume you know where your going, esp after your first time. They sort of look out for you the first time and after that your on your own.
Never owned for the same reasons as yourself. Horses just aren't cheap to maintain or keep in full-livery. Thats also the reason why so many teens and tweens are happy to help out they get to be close to the horses without the cost and commitment of owning. Riding schools are of course happy to have as much help as possible.

If you like the riding school and want to continue going, then perhaps offer to pay 50%. They don't operate with huge profit margins!

If you're happy to find another place to ride, then stand your ground and don't pay.

If I liked the place, I'd just suck it up.

And agree young pony-mad kids at riding stables and farms can be a surprisingly accurate source of authority. They often half-run the place!

You really thought that if you asked a group of kids where an adult was, one of their parents would appear and have a go at you?

That seems a bit… daft. It’s not like you were telling the kids off, or soliciting personal information from them. You would simply have been asking them to point you in the direction of the nearest adult. No reasonable parent is likely to object to that.

If you thought they were that young, surely you didn't think they were just all left at a riding school unaccompanied, and therefore an adult must have been around somewhere?

So you'd then logically ask them where an adult was?

You ask...where is the 9.30am lesson please.

Wouldn't be paying

Also wouldn't expect to be asking a group of kids perceived to be 10 what was going on.

If kid was a ahelpper then they should have been the proactive one saying are you here for the 9.30 lesson.

How do you normally pay? Hopefully not by DD. I would not be paying and if they make an issue of it would take my custom elsewhere.

I think they could have been a been more pro-active in finding you for the lesson you had booked or turning up to the place you usually met, rather than you have to ask some random children. My pet hate is having to wander round somewhere you feel out of place trying to find out what is going on. Riding schools should not assume customers come from the same world and know the procedures around stables. I wouldn't have a fucking clue.

I had this with DD1's dance school she went to when she was little. Once they changed venue and didn't bother to let us know. She didn't go for much longer, I found somewhere that was a bit more organised.

Some places have such poor communication and are badly organised. Doubly bad if they then blame you for it.

Don't pay, they've lied saying the lessons are always on top. What are you supposed to do next time - go to the top, only to find the lesson is elsewhere, then you get blamed again?

It may be a riding school but you're still paying for a service and they haven't provided a basic level of customer service. It would have taken them nothing to check you were there - they could have given the teen helper a heads up to look out for you for example.

I wouldn't pay and if they keep saying they took a horse out for you ask them to reimburse you for your wasted petrol costs.

This is entirely their fault. Don't pay. They sound absolutely chaotic!

We understand how riding schools operate. My teen has been riding for years and we keep her two horses on a very kids'-friendly yard. Kids that hang around yards very often know what's going on and can always say where the adults are if they can't answer a question. It's odd not to ask the kids who were in the office and just silently leave.

I’m not a horsey person but it sounds like a lack of attention to detail on their part if they don’t tell new members where to go. Unless they gave you some information in the beginning which you didn’t bother with, this is mostly on them.

I think you've posted this in the wrong place. You should have posted it in the tack room board. I think you'll get a lot of people responding not knowing how big a riding school can be and to imagine it's perfectly possible for there to be no-one to ask.

Sounds like an old riding school I used to go to. Often there was no-one in the office. Sometimes the odd livery wandering around but I can well imagine a situation like this. I ended up stopping there because they sound exactly like your riding school- very impersonal and frankly pretty snotty. I started at a different school which was much more down to earth and only one instructor who was always around if a lesson was booked.

Just reply saying you have proof you were there. Noone told you where to go so you went home

Just dont go back abd don't pay

Children are able to answer simple questions.

I am afraid I am on team "Why didn't you ask?"

In my experience stables tend to be semi organised, with a huge amount of flexibility.
Flexing depending on the facilities, the horses, the weather, the time of day, who's riding, who's available.

But yes kids hanging around will know whos where with which horse.