MC Equestrian is a family-run hunter/jumper show barn in Cochrane, minutes from Calgary — the kind of place where a nervous beginner gets on a lesson horse for the first time, and where riders come back years later to compete on their own. Same barn, same coaches, every rung. You don’t need experience and you don’t need a horse; you just need to want in. From there, how far you go is up to you.
MC Equestrian is a working hunter/jumper barn just outside Cochrane, run by a family who ride, show and coach for real. It’s a proper show barn — a heated 80×180 indoor arena, a full outdoor sand arena, a grass jumper ring with banks, water and ditches, and around sixteen well-schooled lesson horses — but it never feels like one you have to earn your way into. Beginners start here. Kids and adults, ages 8 & up, get on a horse from day one.
What makes MC different is what comes after that first lesson. This is the barn you don’t grow out of. You start on a lesson horse in the Lesson Horse Program, find your seat, and take your first ribbons at your own pace on the Novice Rider Circuit — welcoming first shows built for lesson-program riders with no horse of their own. Catch the bug and the path keeps going: half-lease a horse, buy one, bring it home to Boarding & Training, and step up to Kim’s competitive Show Team when you’re ready to campaign a season for real.
A lot of barns teach you to ride and send you looking elsewhere once you outgrow the lesson ring. MC was built so you never have to leave — you start in the Lesson Horse Program with Jordan, and when you’re ready to compete you step up to Kim’s Show Team. The coach changes as you climb, but the barn never does: the same family, the same horses, and a team that’s known you since your first lesson. That’s the whole idea, and it’s why families stay.
A barn is only as good as the people in it — the coaches who read a horse and a rider in the same glance, and the crew who have the aisle swept and the horses fed before you ever arrive. These are the people you’ll get to know at MC.
Kim founded MC Equestrian and has been riding for 45 years. Still competing on a smaller scale, her focus now is coaching her students toward their goals — from a first lesson to the show ring.
A third-generation horseman, Jordan has competed in hunter, jumper and equitation up to 1.40m, including the CET Medal Finals at the Toronto Royal. She runs the lesson program and summer camps, and lives on site.
Lauren Woods joins MC as Assistant Trainer, working alongside head coach Kim Rawn. She brings more than 20 years in the saddle and a career built from the ground up in barns — lesson instructor, summer-camp teacher and top-level groom. Lauren started riding in the UK, moved to Vancouver and now to Calgary. She works mainly with Kim, and teaches in the lesson program too.
Kim's nephew, Adam takes pride in the daily care of the horses and lives on site.
Kim's father and a recipient of the Alberta Equestrian Federation's Outstanding Equine Support Personnel award, Harold has helped keep the barn running for over 20 years.
You’ll see a few more faces than these. Our weekend barn crew rotates, so there are others around the aisle on Saturdays and Sundays — feeding, turning out and keeping the horses looked after seven days a week.
Book your first lesson, or come by for a tour and meet the horses, the coaches and the barn — no pressure, no online form, just a real look at where you’d be riding. The next rung starts with a conversation.
Want to visit or ask a question? Email ride@mcequestrian.com or call the barn at (403) 932-3341 — it’s a landline, so please call rather than text. You’ll find us at 35095 Big Hill Springs Rd, Cochrane. We try to respond within 24 hours.
