A ride I visited in January 2024 stunningly beautiful and we had an amazing group but I did have hesitations before arriving.
Their booking office is so slow to respond I was 50/50 on whether to keep working with them. They also increased the ride number from six to eight riders just before the season started when the groups were already fully booked with six for almost a year. You stay at two puestos on the ride - simple traditional cabins where the gauchos live. The main cabin has sleeping for six people and there is a second cabin with sleeping for two connected to the bathroom a short walk away. We had the guide and gaucho sleep there but guests could stay there and the guides sleep in a tent. It’s not the same as staying in the warm main cabin.
They tried to add a random seventh to our Black Saddle group of six with the new policy just weeks before the ride and asked if a Black Saddle rider, who had paid for her own room at the estancia, would share. I had to protest quite loudly to stop it from happening.
They also don’t hold rooms at the estancia for the rides. The itinerary starts with a night at the comfortable estancia where you have a briefing and are given your saddlebags to pack. Sometimes I’m not able to offer the four night ride as advertised and instead guests are collected at 8:30am the following day to set off on horseback immediately. This change to the itinerary can worry some guests, that they are missing out on an element of the ride. The cost is lower of course but it’s the FOMO element the change creates and the rushed start that is still a bit awkward.
When we arrived we realised the local guide that all the reviews rave about was not on our ride but we had a French guide that had arrived in Argentina five weeks earlier and knew nothing about the area.
I tried to hide my disappointment from the girls in our group but felt let down to have a shallow experience compared to what I expected. The French guide was obviously sleeping with the gaucho - and trying very little to hide it. They shared a tent on the first night instead of sleeping in the cabin with us. She would canter to the front often for a moment of contact with him. We had crashed their romantic ride.
I wrote to the estancia afterwards to hear their interpretation of the ride. I said the scenery and horses were perfect but the guiding was sub-par. They said the main guide was ill and so they had a substitute who, they admitted, knew very little.
So, I’ve taken the ride off of the main website. A hard decision because it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever ridden and the hike to the glacier was brilliant. The reviews have all been top-notch, I’ve never had a rider submit anything other than an ‘excellent’ rating.
When things don’t go to plan it reinforces the standards I have for Black Saddle. Here, the ride is now just too commercial and the owner is too far from away me to give feedback that will be effective. The marketing team and booking office can fill the ride with beginners so they don’t care to aim for my experienced, well travelled riders. We are trying to achieve different things.
I want Black Saddle to be the Michelin guide for riding holidays. Sometimes a ride can be perfect for me as an individual but it doesn’t work for the agency. The over-arching question I have when I join a ride is “If anything went wrong would they pull out all the stops to make the experience safe and fantastic for the guests”. If it’s not a hard and obvious ‘yes’ it has to be a no.
The guide is 50% of the ride. Owner led is best. Small groups are best.