For many competitors, the CN North American Junior and Young Riders’ Championships (NAJYRC) is their first experience riding on a team, as well as their first time competing under international rules. The Championships serve as a proving ground for these riders who aspire to someday represent the United States in international competition.

Olympians such as Karen Lende O’Connor, Chris Kappler, Lauren Hough, and McLain Ward all competed at the NAJYRC before going on to their highly successful equestrian careers. Another example is Nathalie Bouckaert Pollard of Chatsworth, Ga., a two-time NAJYRC individual Gold Medalist, whose early accomplishments at the NAYJRC led to a successful career in the sport of eventing.

Bouckaert Pollard, daughter of Belgian Olympian Carl Bouckaert, hit the major equestrian scene with team and individual Gold Medals in eventing at the 1997 NAJYRC. One year later, she returned to claim the individual Gold and team Bronze Medals.

She completed her first four star competition, where just finishing an event of that magnitude is an accomplishment, at the famous Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event in 2002. Bouckaert Pollard then started the year off big in 2003 when she placed third in the Foxhall Cup CCI***, in Atlanta, Ga. She was then selected to the United States’s “B” Squad for the 2003 Pan American Eventing Championship in Fair Hill, Md. There, she rode her now well-known mount, West Farthing, to a respectable eighth place finish