Meadowlarke Stables

Due to the intense heat schedule for Friday July 3 and Saturday July 4 all lessons at Meadowlarke South (MISSISSAUGA LOCATION) have been cancelled. Make up dates will be as follows:
Friday July 3 riders - Friday July 31
Saturday July 4 riders - Saturday August 1
Please do not hesitate to direct any questions to the office

You drove forty-five minutes each way. You packed the snacks. You wrote the check. And now you are standing at the rail watching your child stare at the horse while simultaneously watching a video on their phone, half present in a place that deserves their full attention, Parker Worthington writes.

Sound familiar?

The barn is one of the last genuinely analog experiences available to a child these days, and that is not an accident… It’s a feature. Horses do not respond to distracted riders. They do not care about follower counts. They demand presence, patience, and the kind of slow, attentive observation that is increasingly rare in the life of a ten-year-old who has been raised in a world of instant feedback and infinite scroll. Here is how you, as the adult in the car, can help make the most of this irreplaceable time.

1. Take the Phone the Moment They Hop Out of the Car

Not later. Not after they check one more thing. The moment the car door opens and the barn smell hits, the phone goes into your bag. Do this cheerfully, consistently, and without negotiation. Replace it with an analog dial watch — a real one, with hands, that they have to actually read — so they can track their lesson time and their chores without being tethered to a screen. The watch is not punishment. It is a tool that teaches them to orient themselves in time without a device doing the thinking for them. It also makes them feel enormously grown-up, which, at ten, is most of the battle.

2. Teach Them to Arrive Early and Walk Around

The thirty minutes before a lesson are not downtime. They are the lesson before the lesson. Teach your child to arrive early, walk through the barn quietly, look at the horses, notice which ones seem energetic and which seem settled, check the water buckets, observe the general atmosphere. This habit builds the kind of ambient awareness that separates a rider from someone who merely sits on a horse.

3. Let Them Carry Things

A ten-year-old can carry a saddle. They can carry a grooming bucket, a water bucket, a hay net, a stack of wraps. Let them. Do not carry things for your child at the barn unless they are genuinely too heavy or there is a safety reason to intervene. The physical experience of caring for a horse, including the weight of the tack and the logistics of the grooming kit, is part of the education. Children who are carried through barn chores grow up to be riders who don’t understand why things take as long as they do.

📎 Read more tips at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2026/06/21/ten-things-you-can-do-to-actually-help-your-ten-year-old-at-the-barn/
📸 © Heather N. Photography

Hello to our Pre-Beginner and Beginner riders. Following are the questions for the Horsemanship Command class at the show on Sunday June 7. While the judge will only ask you one question it will be selected at random so will need to research and know all the answers. Good luck everyone.

We had a fantastic turnout on Sunday April 19 for our first Meadowlarke South Schooling Show of 2026. Congratulations to all competitors and especially to the following Champion and Reserve Champion award winners in the following divisions:
PRE-STARTER
Champion - Victorija Zownir on Bandit
Reserve Champion - Victoria Mousseau on Hudson
STARTER
Champion - Sophia Kokonas-Sousa on Gemma
Reserve Champion - Kate Wagner on Mac
PRE-BEGINNER
Champion - Kaliana Sugeng on Rex
Reserve Champion - Aria Sachdev on Gordie
BEGINNER Flight A
Champion - Adeline Dolejsi on Ruby
Reserve Champion - Ivy Woodgate on Gus
BEGINNER Flight B
Champion - Hailey Wickham on Duchess
Reserve Champion - Carino Santos on Argo
INTERMEDIATE
Champion - Yagna Gattupalli on Gemma
Reserve Champion - Courtney Van Essen on Pippin
We’d like to say a big thank you to all competitors, spectators, volunteers and staff for making the day such a great success and we look forward to seeing you alll at our next show on June 7.

Hello to our Pre-Beginner and Beginner riders. Following are the questions for the Horsemanship Command class on Sunday. While the judge will only ask you one question it will be selected at random so you need to research and know all the answers.

Hello. Just a reminder that tonight is 5th week so no lessons are running.