The joys of the internet means that you can become known for your horse passion – without even meaning to! This was the case for free rider, Alycia Burton. She promotes riding horses without saddles or bridles – free riding – and even jumps her horse Goldrush like this.

Free Riding

Do you dream of riding your horse capably without a saddle and bridle? Alycia’s claim to fame came from a photo and then video shown online of her free riding her gelding. Now she has DVDs and does riding tours, promoting her way of riding.

Although she does use tack judging by some photos on her site, her passion is promoting riding without the aids of a saddle and bridle. And it seems that with her horse she is able to soar over some decent sized jumps.  All of this she does on her pinto gelding Goldrush – without the help of a saddle or bridle!

There is a shop on her website to sell related resources.  It seems that sponsors also help to get her message around. This shows that if you have skills and a passion for a particular area of the horse industry, you can promote this.  And you can even have it support you financially.

Products in her store include ‘tack’ that she uses to ride with, clothing, training DVDs in hard copy and online streaming, and tickets to her shows. In fact, she is doing an Australian tour, soon! For this 28 year old New Zealand woman, it looks like she’s doing a great job of getting to follow her passion and promote it as a possibility to others.

“Yet when books have been read and reread, it boils down to the horse, his human companion, and what goes on between them.” ― Walter Farley

There are a number of different disciplines related to horses that are known to many around the world. Consider the likes of dressage, show jumping, cross country, racing, western disciplines and polo and polocrosse. I recently stumbled across one that I hadn’t heard of before – garrocha.

It was whilst reading the Outback Equines website, that I discovered they offered lessons in garrocha. I was intrigued!

As it turns out:

The Garrocha is a lance or pole, it comes in different lengths depending on what it is being used for. Centuries ago it was used as a weapon during the wars. In Spain it is used by the vaquero (cowboys) on farms to move cattle around rather than roping and to help bring stock in. It is used to keep the bulls off the horses while riding around the pastures stock checks.

It is also a competition where two men on horseback chase a bull and the rider with the Garrocha needs to get the bull with a single clean knock-over, as marks will be lost if more than one attempt is made.

You can read more about it here.

Garrocha as a Career

There are two common ways to earn money relating to a particular horse riding discipline if you’re keen to turn it into a career. The first is to go professional. Often this requires a deep commitment of time and money. Many horse riding sports require one or more mounts as well as entry fees and special riding gear.

The second option is to teach. Once you’ve experienced a sport – and even found success with it – then you are in a position to enlighten others. You can charge a fee as you teach them about the riding discipline, it’s rules and how to do it effectively.

If you want a horse riding career, then consider the varying disciplines that are out there. You may first gain a career through riding and competing in that particular discipline. This can be followed up by teaching others to do the same thing in future years. Garrocha is one such possibility!

“There is no better place to heal a broken heart than on the back of a horse.” ― Missy Lyons