About Us

The product of a passion for horses combined with a little idea that took years of consideration and development.

Growing up in downtown Toronto and not coming from a family of equestrians, I started my love of this world by reading anything horse-related that I could get my hands on and stopping the TV anytime I saw four hooves on the screen. My real introduction began with a couple weeks of summer riding camp in Mississauga, which graduated to weekly lessons at a barn in Burlington. Once I graduated from the University of Toronto, I rewarded myself with a lifelong dream in the form of an A circuit, thoroughbred hunter jumper. From there, my horse family expanded (as did my knowledge with the help of a show-grooming job) with Ernie always by my side.

Without any members of my family involved in the horse world, almost everything I learned was from meeting people at shows and by listening to the experiences of other equestrian friends. Throughout the years I’ve encountered searching for new lesson barns, looking for a new home for my own equine partner and everything in between. Through these years I noticed our community relying heavily on “word of mouth”. But what if that didn’t have to be the case? Why can’t we modernize our community and create a user-friendly database of facilities and trainers available to us? Thus, I created NEIGHbourhood; an innovative way to make finding barns in the GTA, in Ontario and in North America easier. We are here to show equestrians what businesses and facilities are offered to them and their horses, and to make it easy for barns to advertise to and connect with clients. We aim to continue to expand and attract the attention of equestrians worldwide! -    Michele Nikolov, Owner