Beautiful/Grand- yes! A tad slow - yes too
By A Yahoo! Contributor, 3/27/10
Wow, there are some heated negative comments in these reviews. I have a suspicion that some of them might be from disgruntled employees who were let go by this stable for cause or by persons who boarded their horse at the stable who were preturbed over being asked to leave due to nonpayment of boarding fees. Some of the comments seem too angry. It is hard for me to imagine they are from a one time customer experience. That is just my opinion. No way to tell about that.
Anyway, I thought I'd put my opinion in with everyone else's.
I am regular trail rider at Deer Run. I highly recommend it to my friends and business associates. My guess is that you won't like it if you are a Type A Personality because this place runs on relaxed Southern time (This is rural Kentucky, not New York City. THe owner is a Texas girl and she doesen't run on New York City time either) which means, very often, if they say 2 PM you might actually ride out at 2:45 PM. I tell people to take a picnic snack and take it easy in case there is the usual wait. Enjoy yourself, instead of getting all worked up into a dither. After all you are out here to relax. So relax and chill.
The trails meander over some of the most beautiful countryside I've ever seen. You may ride through a 50 year old deserted barn, a field, forests, an antebellum cemetery, a beautiful miniature palisade walled tributary stream that eventually goes to the Kentucky River, or past a deserted cabin.
In the summer there are wonderful activities for children of a span of ages. I am old and my daughter is on her own as an skyscraper architect in downtown Chicago. She loves to ride at Deer Run when she comes back to Kentucky. If you have little ones and you are not a obsessive compulsive Type A person, this place I can highly recommend for your children. I trained as a child psychiatrist and we need to get kids away from the computers and outdoors. Do you know there is an epidemic of low Vitamin D (the "sunshine vitamin") in children? They need to get outside. They need to interact with other kids and animals and nature. At least that's my opinion.
The Texan manager Jona Ryan is not a Type A by any means except when it comes to the safety of the kids at horse camp and adult trail riders and the well-being and health of the horses. She is a veritable horse whisperer. She is trained in the Parelli method of trainng horses, and like me, shares a Cherokee ancestory. She can do amazing things with horses. You won't see this on just a single visit. But over time, you will.
So, if you need to saddle up and wind down, this is a super place to go. If you are an up-tight, compulsively over urgent about time sort of person, you won't be happy here in my opinion and had better go to a football or basket ball game instead where there are time keepers to keep everything right on scedule like shot clocks and such.
Patients are always asking me, "How do you as a pschiatrist stand listening to all this stuff every day?" For me, trail riding is a therapy that lets my mind empty out. All my worries and concerns I have as a physicain usually vanish for the hour or so I'm on my horse. It must show. It isn't for everybody, but I think it works well the rest of us.