Filipe Masetti Leite

“We all have fears, problems, and limitations, but when you focus on saddling your horse and riding 20 miles every single day, you can cross continents!” Filipe Masetti Leite, the youngest person in the world to cross the Americas on horseback, doesn’t believe in the word impossible. After graduating from Ryerson’s journalism program, thanks to a scholarship, he decided to live his life’s dream — travel the 10,000 miles that separate the Great White North from his native home in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Not by car, motorcycle, or even bicycle, but on horseback. At age twenty-three, the immigrant built a “war room,” in his stuffy apartment and began planning this near-impossible journey. He didn’t have anything he needed. No horses, saddles, equipment, or money. But with his cowboy mantra, “quitting is never an option,” after two years, he was given everything he needed. Not only did he arrive in Brazil healthy and alive with his three horses Frenchie, Bruiser, and Dude, 803 days after departing from the Calgary Stampede, he went even further. Filipe ended up undertaking two more journeys riding from Brazil to Ushuaia, Argentina, and then Alaska to Calgary, Alberta. Becoming the youngest person and only fourth in the world to have crossed the Americas on horseback. An 8-year project that took Filipe and his beloved horses across 12 nations, trekking more than 17,000 miles. Using anecdotes, photos, and videos from his epic adventures, Filipe has motivated crowds all over the Americas with his inspiring and emotional talk.