Camille Carier Bergeron: Canada’s Dressage Darling

Written by: Dr. Graham Thompson, MSc, PhD
Reviewed by: Dr. Emily Gilbert, PhD

Grand Prix dressage rider Camille Carier Bergeron has a long list of early-career highlights and more recently has become a team player and ambassador for Canada on the global stage.

Bergeron and her longtime equine partner, SOS, helped Canada bring home the bronze at the 2023 Pan American Games. In her second ever show with her mare Finnländerin, Camille won the 2024 Grand Prix Special at the Global Dressage Festival, her first Big Tour victory.
A few months later, Camille was selected to represent Canadian dressage in Paris at the Olympics.

To top it off, Bergeron was named the Equestrian Canada 2024 Dressage Athlete of the Year. At just 24 years old, Camille’s career in the Grand Prix ring is just getting started.

Path to Success

Camille’s strong competitive drive started from a young age. By eleven years old, she had mastered enough preliminary dressage to show nationally at first-level pony. The following year, she was up to FEI-level pony divisions.

Her parents helped her move to Florida so she could ride year-round, and for four months a year, Camille rode alongside the best in North America at world-class facilities in the Sunshine State.

By this point, Camille began trialling an athletic chestnut gelding that really started her showing career. The horse, Lowelas, was a lot of horse for Camille’s abilities at the time. “At first, I was just a passenger. But I started to get better and better,” she recalls.

The Bergerons soon purchased Lowelas and Camille started training with German-born high-performance coach Albrecht Heidemann, who launched the careers of several Canadian team riders.

An Explosive Debut

From ages 14 to 18, Camille trained under Heidemann, steadily progressing through the FEI levels — from Juniors to Prix St. Georges to Young Riders.

As a Young Rider, Camille rode a Dutch Warmblood gelding, Baldacci, to help capture the 2018 NAYC Team Medal for Quebec/Alberta. That year, Camille also earned four first-place finishes in the CDI-Y division and won a series of Individual and Team tests at the Global Dressage Festival in Wellington.

By the end of 2017, coach Heidemann had returned to Germany and Camille began training with Calgary-based Olympian Pia Fortmüller. Feeling homesick, Camille eventually settled back in Québec and began training with Tokyo Olympian Brittany Fraser-Beaulieu, who remains her coach today.

With Fraser-Beaulieu’s guidance, Camille continued working her way up the dressage levels, from Young Riders to Under 25 (U25) to Grand Prix.

Bergeron competed for Canada in every Nations Cup from 2019 through 2021 in Wellington Florida, winning nine medals total. By spring of 2021, she was ranked first on the FEI U25 world rankings, an outstanding feat for a Canadian rider in a field of powerhouse European nations.

Camille capped off her season-long success at U25 and transitioned to Grand Prix when she was awarded the prestigious Orion Cup, named after her mentor and one-time coach Pia Fortmüller’s Olympic team horse, Orion.

Riding for Canada

With the Paris Olympics on the horizon in 2023, Bergeron was poised to compete for Canada internationally at the Pan American Games in Chile. As Camille explains, even qualifying as a rider for keystone international events is a major undertaking.

“I didn’t really have any expectations. It was our first year showing Senior Grand Prix. At first, we were super green. SOS would be great, then I’d make a mistake. I’d fix that, then he’d make a mistake. So, until we were both on the same page, it took a bit of time,” she reflects.

For Team Canada to earn a place at the Olympics, Bergeron and her teammates – Beatrice Boucher, Mathilde Blais-Tetreault and Naïma Moreira Laliberté – needed to make the podium. By distributing their strengths strategically across tests, SOS, Bergeron and their teammates clinched the bronze medal for Team Canada. Separately, Bergeron placed 7th in the individual freestyle competition

The strong finish secured Team Canada’s place at the Olympics, and Camille and her Oldenburg mare, Finnländerin, qualified as a combination to go to the Games.

After returning home from the Olympics, Camille spontaneously entered a FEI World Cup Dressage qualifier in Devon, PA. She did well, earning second place with Fïnnländerin.

Camille Bergeron & Finnländerin
Photo: Cealy Tetley 2024

Nutrition for Elite Equines

Bergeron relies on Mad Barn for expert nutritional advice and support. The first Mad Barn supplement she introduced to her program was Spirulina.

Bergeron works closely with her equine nutritionist and has a process of testing each horse that comes into her care for vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Currently, she feeds multiple supplements across her entire barn and trusts Mad Barn’s science-backed approach to support her horses’ health and performance.

Away from the Spotlight

In her home province of Québec, Camille runs Les Écuries Élégance, the family’s bustling stable in the heart of Laval.

Alongside her parents, Camille has built a flourishing coaching, training and international stud and broodmare business. As Bergeron explains the motto at Les Écuries Élégance: “We sell, we breed, we train, we coach.” With her students, Camille fosters a learning environment with an emphasis on excellence and continuous improvement.

This ethos permeates everything Camille does, whether coaching, training, or competing. She has proven herself as a competitor and ambassador for Canada, representing our values on the world stage. With her dedication and work ethic, she is someone to watch out for as a rising Canadian superstar.