Press release from The Young Riders Academy

The Young Riders Academy enters its eighth year of activity, a path studded with challenges, goals achieved, ambitions and successful stories.

Some key facts: 215 candidates for selections throughout the years, 64 have been part of the project; 62% of them attended the full program while 38% took part in the education sessions. The professional riders involved for the training program were 12 – among them Jos Lansink, Franke Sloothak, Henk Nooren, Ben Schröder and Marco Kutscher.

From 2017, the association has initiated the YRA Family, a platform open to all Academy athletes that have completed their program, who continued in the sport’s environment and kept contact with the Academy founders. The will is certainly to assist them in the future, but also to help them find support, inspiration, and companionship among all YRA colleagues. Today, the YRA Family counts more than 60 active members.

While 2020, the year of Covid-19, was unprecedent in everyone’s lifetime – luckily in September it became possible to complete the selection for YRA 2020 in Peelbergen. For 2021, the Board already has several events planned. To make it a constructive year for the whole team it is also confirmed that training and activities for group selected in September is extend to the whole 2021.

The aim of YRA remains to train show jumping young talents and to prepare their career as future professionals in this sport. With this in mind, the first transformation concerns the organizational structure.

In fact, is with immense pleasure, that the Board of Athenaeum – which includes Eleonora Ottaviani and Breido Graf zu Rantzau – announces the appointment of Jean Maurice Bonneau as technical advisor and “YRA Chef d’Equipe”. Rider, trainer and manager with great experience and knowledge of show jumping at the highest levels, are all attributes that make him one of the most prestigious personalities in equestrian sports worldwide.

Bonneau will be the liaison between rider, trainers, and NF’s Chef d’Equipe during the program; he will also support all riders on sport plans and issues whenever needed. Jean Maurice Bonneau will act in teamwork with the sport manager Sven Holmberg.

“We have started our 7th edition with the Young Riders Academy and, in the years, we have seen 64 young riders coming in. We all share the same values, rights and duties, but duties in this world, in 2021, are very important to mention as a priority. And this is our aim and our spirit, and I say ‘we’ because Young Riders Academy is plural, it’s not one person, it’s a group of passionate people who share exactly the same values of the sport,” Jean Maurice Bonneau says.

The young Riders Academy is a program conceived for European talented young show jumpers with the cooperation of the International Jumping Riders Club (IJRC) and the support of Rolex since its first edition. Founded in 2014 by Athenaeum, a non-profit association, the program will give talented riders between the ages of 18 and 23 the chance to live and train for several months at an international professional stable. On top of it, professional education in communication, business and economics, veterinary and legal practice related to show jumping. The goal is to grow future champions as well as potential managers of this sport.