Complaint Review: Sunny Acre Stables - Elizabeth Colorado

 Mick, the owner, will lie, deny, and will never take accountability for ANYTHING.  

FIRST ISSUE:  On at least THREE occasions that we are aware of, our horses were without ANY water. And of course, instead of apologizing EACH TIME, Mick blamed it on the horses for drinking too much.  Thank god our horses didn't colic.  

SECOND ISSUE: Our horses began losing weight and we noticed hay thrown all over the ground by each horse's paddock gate although he told me that he placed their hay in their respective loafing shed, however each time I arrived at the arena the hay was ALWAYS thrown on the ground in front of the paddock gate. Of course, Mick made up one of his numerous excuses for why there was hay by the gate.  Mick was supposed to feed our horses supplemental pellets twice a day.  Just before we removed the horses from his facility, I arrived at the stable to find about 2.5 inches of water in the horses bucket where pellets are supposed to be placed, IT HAD NOT RAINED FOR TWO DAYS.  I asked Mick if he had fed the horses that morning and he said "YES".  I asked him how he fed the horses their pellets with 2.5 inches of water in the buckets.  Mick then admitted (for once) that he lied to me and that he had NOT fed my horses that morning.  The next words that came out of his mouth were the most disturbing, Mick said that he had not fed our horses for three days due to the rainy weather.  No wonder our horses were losing weight.  By the looks for Mick, he wasn't missing any meals.

THIRD ISSUE: We initially paid $500 each, to keep our horses indoors and part of the boarding fee including our horses being let out in a larger paddock during nice weather.  I went to the stable around 2 pm during a week day to find my horses still in their stables and all the other horses were outside in their respective paddocks.  When I confronted Mick and asked him why my horses were still in their small indoor stable, he said that he was letting his horses out for a while.  I asked him if he was rotating other customer horses, and he said NO.  Mick then began a sorrowful excuse that his horses never get out but he would put them indoor and let my horses out.  I explained that I paid to have my horses let out and as the paying customer he should honor what he promises.  

FOURTH ISSUE:  Mick stated my horse broke one of the paddock posts (which was a very cheaply erected fence) so I paid for the post and I was told to bring a fence charger to keep the horse from leaning on and breaking the tiny posts.  I went to the stables a few days later, I found my horse in another paddock after paying and installing the $100+ dollars fence charger.  When I confronted Mick, he once again made up the excuse as to why the horse wasn't in the paddock where the fence charger was.

FIFTH ISSUE: When we removed our horses from the inside stables to the outside paddocks, I found wire, glass, nails, plastic and other items that could have been ingested, cut the horse or caused the horse to become lame.  Of course, more excuses from Mick and he never removed the hazards from the paddocks.  I in fact, spent several hours combing the paddocks picking up the hazardous debris.

There were other issues with Mick, but what I mentioned above are the main and most important issues.  Mick is an excuse man, he will lie to your face without even blinking, blame you, your horse, and make up any reason he can and will come up with every excuse in the book to avoid taking responsibility for his own inactions.    If you love your horse and want the horse well taken care of, DO NOT STABLE AT THIS FACILITY.  We are incredibly lucky neither horse were hurt, became sick or suffered colic.