Peavine Creek Horse Farm

Terre does not offer ordinary trail rides, allowing inexperienced riders to abuse horses. She loves horses too much for that. Note that the web site says that they offer instructional trail rides. That means riding lessons. If you don't know what you're doing, you will learn.

She is a superb horse trainer, and riding instructor. She recently spent 2 Saturdays with me, a novice rider. She is a no-nonsense person who takes a no-nonsense approach to riding: you are going to do it correctly. That's good. She knows horse psychology well, and emphasized how important it is to do the same thing, the same way, every time in order to avoid confusion.

Each time, she let me practice for hours in the controlled conditions of the barn, and we did a trail ride afterwards. She had me starting to feel very comfortable sitting a trot bareback, overcoming a childhood fear of bareback riding, and introduced me to English and Western tack. She also taught me something about how to care for horses and tack. After 2 long lessons, I'm still no expert, but I'm a bit stunned to think about how I've been allowed abuse horses on past trail rides at other places.

I can see how Terre could be misunderstood. She's a bit eccentric (but so am I) and she yells a lot, but when you do things right, she is very encouraging. She is simply one of those people who really cares about things being done right. I like that, and I like her.

On a visit to Chattanooga, my sister and I went to Peavine Creek for a trail ride. We had to wait an hour to even get the owner's attention--and she wasn't busy--and then she assigned us horses without even bothering to find out who was at what level! My sister ended up on a nice enough show/lesson horse, while I was on an elderly mare that barely wanted to walk! Now, I've been riding for years and have trained several horses, yet a third girl, a dead beginner, was allowed to ride (and jump) a horse bareback and with only a halter! The owner yelled at us the whole time, almost making my sister want to dismount and go home... even I didn't think the experience was worth it, and that was supposed to be the highlight of my trip! She was absolutely horrid to her students, even in front of us, and I would not go back there by choice.

I took lessons from Terri for a long time and I can honestly say that I was well warned by all of the horse people I know..........I should have listened! She is psychotic! She used me to do work for her, put me in dangerous situations, yelled at me, slapped me on the arm when I said the wrong thing in front of a perspective buyer and told me to keep my mouth shut (FYI...she had people coming to view a horse that she had already sold, so she was trying to sell them a different horse). She started out nice as could be, then her true colors came through. After riding there for only a month, she had me taking out people and young children on trail rides. She would over book and she even had me take out a child on a horse that you could only walk beside holding a halter, no saddle, pads, I spent hours walking around and didn't even get a free lesson. She used me to completely clean and oil all the gear I used...I didn't know better. Know that I have ridden at many other barns, I know that no one else in town makes you do that. I have also seen her be abusive verbally to many young children, making them cry. I would never talk about another person like this lightly! STAY AWAY!!!