Sarah Sykes grabs a broom and starts sweeping hay and mud near the stalls at the New Canaan Mounted Troop. The New Canaan High School student pauses briefly to instruct a younger troop member on cleaning buckets as three other girls line up to get their work assignments. A dozen girls are already busy with jobs such as gathering horse feed, wetting down hay and filling water buckets.
It’s “barn day” for New Canaan Mounted Troop’s cadets. As barn day captain, Sarah’s duty is to make sure all of the chores get done.
“To begin with it was hard, but you get used to it,” Sarah says about the leadership responsibility. “I have to teach the little kids how to do some of the jobs, but basically we just do whatever needs to be done.”
That includes dumping the muck buckets — filled with hay, dirt, spilled horse feed and whatever else the sweepers gather — which, Sarah confesses is, “actually one of my favorite jobs.”
Located on a picturesque thirteen acres on Carter Street, the New Canaan Mounted Troop is a nonprofit educational organization with thirty horses and stalls, an indoor riding ring and several open pastures. Host to the equestrian teams from New Canaan High School and Fairfield University, its cadet horsemanship program — riding and equine education for children aged seven to eighteen — is the backbone of the NCMT.
To read this article in its entirety, please purchase this month’s issue of NEW CANAAN • DARIEN magazine. If you’d like a listing of local newsstands where NEW CANAAN • DARIEN magazine is sold, please click here. To subscribe click here