Emmanuelle Schramm Looks Back on a Decade at FFE and a Future of Making Le Mans Sustainable

Dressage

France

After ten years having served as France's Technical Director for Dressage, Emmannuelle Schramm begins a new chapter in her life in which she fully dedicates herself to running equestrian centre "Pole Européen du Cheval" in Le Mans.

Busy at Le Mans

The venue is well known for hosting international dressage competitions throughout the years, as well as the French 7-year old Championships and certain classes of the French breeding championships. However, dressage riders make up only a small group of competitors that visits the center.

Pole Européen du Cheval is one of the biggest equestrian hubs in France for competitions and in 2022 they were no less than 52,000 participants competing in 40 events across disciplines. Emmanuelle runs these shows together with her husband Philippe Rossi.

"I am lucky to have at home the opportunity to find a passionate job I can return to and collaborate with my husband Philippe in the organization of equestrian competitions," Schramm told Eurodressage about her resignation from the top job at the French Equestrian Federation. "My husband and my son are both happy to see me at home again."

"It’s a big infrastructure and there’s no shortage of work," she continued. "If we only speak about international dressage, this year we will have 2 CDI 3*, one CDI 4*, one CDIO for youth categories, and the European pony championships !"

Lessons Learnt

Schramm looks back with appreciation over the years she spent as team captain of French high performance dressage sport, the majority of the time alongside team trainer Jan Bemelmans and since 2022 with Jean Morel in the trainer/selector seat.

"I have learned a lot over the past few years, especially from Jan Bemelmans, but also from observing and exchanging with trainers, riders, team leaders, organisers, judges, owners, breeders," she said. "So interesting to meet high level experts in each of their speciality."

The first highlight in her time was France clinching an Olympic team spot at the 2015 European Championships and travelling to Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympics. They repeated that feat for the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo.

"I am proud to have accompanied the development of an Olympic discipline in France," she explained. "We changed some rules to enhance the respect of the horse. I tried to help the riders as much as I could: in this period, they won some Nations Cups, they managed to qualify our country for Rio and Tokyo! It was not that easy. I was very proud of them. I also saw the younger ones improve a lot, not only in their riding or performance but also in their mindset which was also the goal."

With the French team at the 2021 Olympics

In the summer of 2022, Schramm no longer found herself on the same line as the technical staff with Morel in charge and she decided to resign from her post.

"For all this, and even if it didn’t end as I expected, I thank the President of the FFE Serge Lecomte and the DTN Sophie Dubourg, who gave me a lot of confidence and allowed me to live this 10 years incredible experience," she concluded.

Le Mans, an Eco Project

Emmanuelle will devote all her time now at making "Le Mans" a successful, profitable and sustainable equestrian venue in France.

"Now I am free to invest in subjects that interest me and concern me a lot for a long time; for example the climate disruption with big consequences for our future in general but for the equestrian world in particular, such as water, energy , transport, etc," Emmanuelle told Eurodressage.

"In our own place in Le Mans, we try to anticipate this. We have 8000 m2 of photovoltaic panels on our indoors arenas that produce electricity, two outdoor arenas have been transformed into sub irrigation, which needs 70% less water. What is on-going is a methanation unit to transform our manure into green gas."

She cheekily added that, "I try to convince my husband to have sheep instead of tractor to mow our cross country but I haven't succeeded, yet."

Emmanuelle is optimistic about the future and looks forward to the new year.

"My work changes but I will have the pleasure to continue to meet many players of French and international dressage thanks to the national and international competitions at Le Mans," she concluded. "Many of them have become friends, some very dear friends. Even if I’m no longer in charge, I wish them the best for future!"