Airdance Farm

I am very grateful that I found Airdance and the barn manager Lisa. The facility it's self is fine, nothing fancy. Lisa is what makes this place shine. She is a knowledgeable and friendly horsewoman who takes each of the horses under her care to heart. I had to move to a different ranch after a couple years to save some money but Lisa and I still keep in touch. Arrangements fell through for my 9+ month pregnant mare due to serious health issues of the owners at the old ranch. I was in a pinch as I have never been the lead on delivering a baby and oh my god what if something went wrong!?! On top of all that I had a wedding to go to in Mexico that would put me back in CA only days before she was due!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! I had to find a somewhere that Babe and baby would be safe with or without me there. I scoured the ranches in the area and stumbled across Airdance. I am so so glad I did. Lisa had a spot for my mare and told me to bring her over asap so she would have enough time to adjust before her due date. I hauled her out that weekend and was relieved to see she would be well cared for. Well cared for is an understatement, she was well love immediately. In a ranch full of towering warmbloods, my little Babe was such a cute little fat horse. She was put in a 3+ acre pasture with 3 other mares. Lisa was very good about observing the dynamic to make sure the horses meshed. Babe is a loner so that was easy. Once her time was approaching Lisa moved her into a private stall and pasture. Babe was in heaven. I had to leave for Mexico so Lisa agreed to call my friend if Babe started to go into labor. Lisa checked on her everyday and even sent me a couple email updates. I couldn't have appreciated it more. The night I got back from Mexico Lisa gave me a call to let me know my little filly had been born moments before. She didn't have time to call me beforehand because the baby got stuck and she had to pull her out of Babe. I flew over to the ranch and got there within 25 minutes of Brigit Bardot being born. Lisa's competence and experience saved me a huge vet bill that night. Of course Brigit had to be special needs baby so I had buku vet bills anyways but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Lisa was so great about scheduling my vet visits in conjunction with others so it was cheaper for everyone. Anything she could do she did so that I didn't have to pay the vet to do it or make multiple trips to the ranch everyday. I am eternally grateful to Lisa and bratty Brigit owes her her life. I had to move to a different ranch a few months ago to save some money but if circumstances allow I will be back at Airdance. I am not a jumper so I couldn't really justify keeping the horses there. Though I am happy at the new ranch I miss Lisa and all my two & four legged friends.BTW, I really liked everyone at the ranch too. They are a very nice group that all takes great care of their horses. The take home on this is: Airdance is fantastic because of Lisa and she is fantastic because of who she is.

I would highly recommend NOT doing any business with Lisa Dunckley. I purchased an in utero contract and paid a great deal of money for it. When the contract was not fulfilled, she has found excuses for nearly a year to NOT return my money. I finally took her to small claims court and have a judgement for over $5000. Still getting excuses and untruths from her...If you do business, you should be ethical, honest and honorable, which I found her none of those things. I finally have just decided that I must disclose this and will do so in any media I can find. It is not fun or easy to get a judgement against someone...so just realize that this can easily happen to you if you engage in any contracts with her.

UPDATE: Well it has been a year since Lisa "purchased" a pony from us, and not a dime! Very difficult dealing with CA courts from 3000 miles away. But I want to thank all the people who contacted me, who reaffirmed that Lisa is not honest. I just found out too late in this case. So beware if you plan on doing business with her. You have been warned.

I decided to sign both my son and daughter up for horseback riding lessons. We got them both boots and they were really excited. I am completely disgusted with this business. I called and on the first call, some lady answered the phone but told me she was too busy standing by a horse to even answer any of my questions. She asked me to email her, so I did. She promised to write back. She never wrote back, so I called again. This time no answer. I called 7 more times over the span of a few months. Finally I left a message asking her to please just let me know if she doesn't want my business or what?! It seemed like they weren't interested at all in getting new clients, and that is a business I don't want anything to do with, because there are plenty of business owners hungry for good reviews and happy clients willing to spend their money there.

I signed a contract with Lisa for semen from her stallion Noble Houston. Sent her $1000 on July 23, 2014. It is a year later and now her latest excuse is that he cannot perform due to injury. We have since moved on and found a reputable breeder who followed up, answered emails immediately and honoured their contract. Now I am pursing Lisa for reimbursement of my money seeing I have received nothing. As per her contract I am entitled to full reimbursement if the stallion is unable to provide semen. I guess what she meant is that I have to chase her around for months and listen to her excuses when I do reach her. DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS WOMAN!

I purchased a Groupon for a riding lesson at Airdance Farms back in February. It is now almost May and I STILL have yet to get a response back about scheduling the lesson. I've lost count of how many phone calls and emails I've sent. I'm sure they were overwhelmed by the Groupon response, but what do you expect? As a business owner, be smart enough to anticipate that if you offer a half off deal, you're going to get swamped. If you're not prepared for it, then don't offer the Groupon. Very disappointed in my experience and am in the process of working with Groupon to get my money back.

I got a kick out of Christine J.'s review because my experience is/was the exact same as hers. I purchased two Groupons in February, each good for 1 horseback riding lesson at Airdance Farm. I purchased the Groupons planning/hoping to use them for me and my wife on our wedding anniversary. (We were looking at a mid-week date, so you wouldn't expect too many people requesting horseback riding lessons at 11am on a Thursday!)Since vendors are often inundated with business after a Groupon offering, I waited until April to contact Airdance Farm to arrange an appointment that would be several weeks down the road. I called the number on the Groupon and spoke with a woman (presumably the owner) who said the Groupon offering was more popular than she anticipated (~250 sold, apparently) and she was bringing in extra help. She asked me to email her my contact info and preferred date. I did that same day. After 12 days with no response, I sent another email and called the phone number again and again left a vm. (The vm recording says they try to respond to all calls the same day - not based on my experience!) A week passed with no response to any of my emails or my vm. I called again and left another vm. No response. I called yet again and the same woman answered and gave me the same story again. She said she hired someone to help and that person would follow up with me that day. However, there was no follow up. I called again and left yet another vm. I called again after another week of radio silence and got the same story about how a colleague would call me the next day. The next day came and went without a follow up.At this point I was beyond frustrated. The owner of the business did not return a single phone call or email and made excuses and promises (that she never followed up on) each time I was able to get a hold of her. Needless to say, her behavior was very unprofessional. I decided to write Groupon to enlist their help. They were initially responsive and said they'd reach out to the business. A week later, I was still waiting to hear whether they had any success. I'm on the cusp of asking Groupon for my money back. I get that Groupon can drive more customers to small businesses than they can handle, but the lack of customer service is ridiculous. I can't say that Groupon is looking too good right now either. Although, it shouldn't be a surprise given their own issues they're dealing with. Ironically, one of the issues is customers demanding refunds!

My experience being the same as the others-- cannot get hold of anybody from Airdance Farm, left numerous voice mails and emails without getting any response from Airdance Farm, I drove down to the place today. THERE'S NO AIRDANCE FARM AT THE ADDRESS LISTED BOTH ON GROUPON AND THE FARM'S WEBSITE!! I saw it with my own eyes: there's no farm, no stable, no horses. Just a piece of open land opposite the airport in Livermore! THIS IS A SCAM!! How can Groupon sell coupons for a company that no longer exist?? They did not care to find out whether a company even exist before offering to sell their services. How irresponsible. As I recall, hundreds of coupons for this " horseback riding lessons at Airdance Farm" were bought all the way back in February. Groupon needs to give an explanation and refund all of us who got scammed.Of note, if you search "Airdance Farm" on the internet you'll see another address in Pleasanton with phone number (925) 461-4800-- don't bother calling. Someone with a foreign accent will tell you it's a wrong number. You will not be able to find this "farm"'s phone number on the Yellow Pages either. If anybody out there were able to use their Groupon for this horseback riding, or know where this "farm" is, please kindly reply and let us know. Thanks!!

Just moved another horse to Airdance because of the fabulous care Lisa gives them. She carefully chose a pasture where he would be with a compatible horse friend and he's much happier. And she has some adorable foals that were just born -- beautiful little horses!

My retired gelding lives at Airdance. The care is exemplary, and Lisa has an eagle eye for even the smallest problems. She breeds really nice warmbloods, too.