Has anyone had any issues stabling/renting housing at Stableview in Aiken? Hearing a lot of negative feedback and am also dealing with some unfortunate circumstances at the facility. Feedback appreciated!
I have heard nothing but wonderful things about Stable View – except one person who has been posting terrible reviews on all social media platforms recently. All other reviews from competitors and boarders are positive. Their facilities are top notch – Boyd and Sylva Martin stay there every winter. I have volunteered at both advanced HTs and have heard nothing but glowing feedback.
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The terrible reviews are very warranted. Sounds like you may know them personally, people should know the truth about how they treat people who are not Boyd Martin.
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We stayed there for week when our trainer was wintering there. We had a great experience.
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We stayed there for the advanced horse trial this fall. It was such a lovely event and very well put on. We are going again next year. Only snag was that we rented the house initially, and they had to put officials in it. They gave us the apartments instead. The stalls below the apartments were beyond gorgeous. I would live in them!
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I have heard nothing but great reports about Stableview and I plan to be competing there during early 2018.
Based on what I have heard previously, and am reading here, I would say that there is not “a lot of negative feedback.” Rather, there seems to be one person, angry at a business for some undisclosed “unfortunate circumstance.”
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It is a gorgeous facility, for sure, but I can kind of get the whole feeling of being treated differently if you’re a smurf vs UL. I was there for their first or second recognized event and it felt a little to me like they were in over their heads. At that time, anyway.
Stabling was stunning, but I don’t need a stall so large that it takes 7 bags of shavings just to cover the bottom (makes it a bit less cost effective).
My only constructive criticism is that warmup for dressage was inadequate, with a small grass area trying to serve 3 dressage rings; it was kind of mayhem. And the warmup for XC was in the covered with some portables. I think it’s a bit unfair to have the horse warmup on carpet and then go have to deal with the actual footing when they get on course.
But, all in all a nice place. Not sure I’ll spend the money to go back . . . but a nice place. And I’d be willing to bet they’ve sorted out a lot of the issues since I was there.
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And now that person has found us…
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Could anyone who has been there more recently comment on whether the issues Acme Eventing noted have been corrected? I have heard a lot about what a gorgeous facility it is, but it is by far the most expensive event around, and I don’t want to go if it’s not going to be a great experience for my horse. I’m going to ride, not to shoot a calendar.
Jennifer
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Stableview is by far one of my favorite events. I’m excited they’re offering an opening horse trial in mid-January with discounted entry fees, so I’m not sure how anyone received the feel that it was an UL event only. Then, in late January while the entries are raised there’s prize money.
I’ve stabled there just for horse trials first by renting a paddock, then a stall. I found everything up to par, if not above. This next time, I will be stabling offsite, probably at Full Gallop, which is I believe $25/night including shavings. I would say stall prices were comparable to Chatt Hills or Poplar, so it didn’t surprise me, but there’s so many other options if you want to save a few dollars.
However, I have no real complaints, and I’d definitely support the event.
You want disclosure? I’ve paid in full for both an apartment and the entire pond barn, 8 stalls for the month of December, and October and November. They decided to start an unnecessary surprise construction project with no notice to me AFTER taking my payment. With massive trenches and 3-5 heavy equipment trucks going all at the same time. I’ve moved my horses at the start of this obviously, and have since been threatened, bullied and intimidated consistently by the owners via email and now with daily actions. They moved their own horses into the barn I paid for after a couple of weeks, and I won’t assume but let’s just say their horses where incredibly quiet and laying down quite a bit-which is not the norm for them. Anyway, I was not given any notice, not options for housing for ourselves or options for the horses(until after I said I stopped Payment on my check-which I did not) and that was after I had moved them for their safety. Humans have been living with construction noise down to the entire apartment shaking 7 days a week so they can fill in a pond!!??! I have not recieved my money back, and dont expect to without going to court. This is who you guys are paying your money to wheu go support their events. Funny enough I found notices for the winter guests and event guests to stay away from the pavilion construction for their safety, however these same machines where being used directly in front of our apartment, barn and paddocks. This is what I’ve been dealing with. Everyone I talk to down here says yes they know how insane it is but it’s of no surprise, including their own staff. And that similar things have happened before, so I wanted to see if anyone on here had a bad experience. I’m not a terrible person write g terrible reviews. I’m a completely normal person concerned for the safety of my horses, feeling very wronged by these people who have zero remorse and care only about their dollars. I wonder how all of you would react if you where in my shoes??!
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If they weren’t using the equipment in your horses paddock, in the barn and were not in danger of accidently taking out the fenceline I don’t how this was dangerous. They were willing to move their horses into the barn you refused to use so I would assume that means they didn’t find it dangerous for their horses. I think you are making a big assumption about how their horses normally act. Implying that they were drugging them is pretty ballsy and if you weren’t implying they were drugging their horses then I suggest you change the wording in your post to make it more clear what you were trying to say/imply.
Yes I would have found the noise annoying especially if it was 7 days a week. Of course you should stay away from the actual construction area. It does not sound like the actual construction area was in the fields you rented or the barns. Would I have nicely asked for a discount since they were in control of the construction timeline and failed to tell you? Maybe. Based on your description I would not have moved my horses. Based on what you have written I do not see that your horses were in any danger. The decision to move them was yours and is on you. It is inconvenient to have construction near where you are renting but not the end of the world.
DH and I rented a house down at the beach one year. They drove wooden footer piling on 6 of the 7 days we were there on the property next door. Yes the house shook. Construction started at 6:30 am every morning. Just what I wanted on my vacation to be woken up at 6:30 every morning. Yes it would have been dangerous if I went into the construction area but not if I stayed where I belonged on the property I rented. No, nobody was going to give me a refund or partial refund because it was noisy and the house shook.
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I don’t know anybody involved in this dispute but construction on the property “next door” is out of the control of the owners of the property you are renting. That is not the case here. A more comparable situation would be if you rented the 2nd floor of a luxury beachfront condo for the summer from the owners and the owners decided to do a summer long super noisy non-emergency construction project on the ground floor apartment that shook your apartment all day, made it impossible to have normal conversations, got dirt in the pool and freaked out your dogs and they didn’t tell you about it before you signed the lease. I’d be pretty peeved too.
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It was ALL in the way of the horses and the construction area was exactly outside of the barn and in the paddocks. This wasn’t the neighbor this was the owner. If I could figure put how to post pictured on this I would. 1000000% NOT SAFE for horses. Or dogs. And incredibly stressful for us.
Yes, changes have been made from the warmup situation discribed above. Dressage warmup for the horse trials is now quite a large open grass area, in no way crowded. The xc warmup is a smaller outdoor grass area with portable xc jumps.
As as far as the pavilion, it’s not exactly a surprise project, it’s been announced in emails and I suspect on their website for over a year.
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I would be surprised if an active training and competition venue was not the site of some amount of construction a large percentage of the time. My little bitty 12-stall facility is constantly undergoing improvements. And I’m broke! I can’t imagine what it would be like if I had ridonkulous financial resources 
Jennifer
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This was not The pavilion construction. It was a separate and unnecessary surprise project on the other side of the property where we rented a private barn, apartment and paddocks. With no decency of even giving us any notice or options to move to a safer place for the month. We had already been renting there for 2 months.
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You are obviously unhappy with your experience. My question for you is “what is the outcome you are expecting/wanting from your negative reviews?”
I think it will come down in part to whatever agreement you signed and if you can prove that they somehow did not honor their side of the contract.
I have a few more questions for clarification. You just told us that you were there for 2 months before this situation occurred. Did you pay for the 2 months? When did you do the stop payment?
If you read the thread and my long post about disclosure, you will see I paid in full for all three months. And if you look previous to that when friends of the owner clearly trolled this post that I’m not looking for an outcome on this forum. I was looking for others ( and I know for a fact there are others) that have had similar situations-not with construction-however with being treated ridiculously, to come forward. Seems more like someone from there is more focused on having friends or acquaintances troll my posts.
