Curated riding journeys
tropilla /tro-PEE-sha/ noun
A band of horses that moves together, following one bell mare.
Spanish · Río de la Plata
If riding is your passion, this trip is for you. Seven days around Buenos Aires seen through a rider's eyes: lessons with local instructors, visits to stables, the chance to try horses, and to watch competitions. Every day of it was put together by people who compete and teach in this sport.
What makes it different
Five structured lesson days with instructors from a prestigious riding team in Buenos Aires, my own family among them. You should arrive able to ride, and leave with technique you didn't have.
Small enough that the instructors know your seat by day two, and the horses are matched to each rider by level and temperament.
Criollo breeders, working farms and equestrian gatherings, open to us because my family has ridden and worked alongside these people for decades. Every visit is a personal invitation.
Living the sport from the inside, the way locals do in Argentina. Working farms, dirt roads and long tables, but a curated trip, a good place to stay, and someone who has checked every detail before you arrive.
A typical week
Arrival and departure are fixed. What happens between them shifts with the weather, the horses, and what is going on in the countryside that week — the elements below are the constants, not the calendar.
Arrival
Transfer from the airport, time to rest. Evening introduction to the riding team and the week ahead.
First lesson
A morning finding your seat on unfamiliar horses. Afternoon with criollo breeders.
Position, then open country
Morning lesson on flatwork and position over fences. Afternoon riding out beyond the city.
Riding in a rural setting
Gymnastics and gridwork in a rural arena, followed by a traditional equestrian gathering.
Horses, seen properly
Morning lesson. Afternoon learning how horses are evaluated here — conformation, movement, temperament — alongside people who do it for a living.
The last ride
A final lesson ridden for pleasure rather than correction. Farewell dinner.
Departure
Transfer to the airport.
A day at the jumping ring, or the polo
When the competition calendar falls inside the week, an afternoon watching Argentine show jumping, or the Abierto de Polo in Buenos Aires. The dates are set by the federation rather than by me, so this is offered when it is genuinely available and never invented to fill a day.
Off the horse
Half of what you will remember happens after you dismount. The country you ride through is the same one that produces the beef, the malbec and the music — and the people running this trip will show you all of it through their own eyes, taking you to the places they go themselves.
Who it's for
The lessons, the horses and the instructors are all oriented toward the sport itself. Everyone in the group rides at a similar level in the same seat, which is what makes it possible to work on real things over a week rather than run a general riding holiday. It means turning people away.
If you are close to the line, write anyway and tell me honestly where you are. I would rather have that conversation now than on day two.
Why I built this
Horses came into our family through my brother.
When I was five, my mother took our family to a Therapeutic Riding centre. My brother was born with spina bifida, and riding had been recommended for him. We went for his sake, and then none of us left.
What began as therapy became the thing our family does. I grew up at the stable — riding, helping in my mother's classes, spending weekends at competitions. In time it stopped being a hobby and became the family business.
That has not changed. My mother still teaches Therapeutic Riding. My siblings are in the sport full time, raising horses and teaching riders, in Argentina and in Europe. When I go home, I go to the barn.
I live in Maryland now, and seeing my own country from outside it made something obvious. What gets sold to visitors is a rented horse and an hour on a trail, arranged for people passing through. The sport in Argentina is something else entirely, and that is what I grew up in.
Tropilla is the week I have when I go home, opened to six other riders. Lessons with people who teach year round. Farms and breeders reached through friendships built over years rather than booked. Open country, clean air, and the horse itself, which in Argentina is part of how the country understands itself.
What I can offer is both halves at once: the sport from inside a family that has lived it for thirty years, and the country from someone who grew up here and cares about the same things you do. A week for riders who already love this and want to see it from the inside.
— Andrea
Founder, Tropilla
Argentine, based in Maryland
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