During the Christmas holidays Eurodressage's most popular "End of the Year Questions" series returns to the website. We have asked the most important dressage figures of 2011, and that can include riders, trainers, judges, journalists and other prominent dressage personalities, to review the year 2011.

Even though heavy rainfall turned the 2011 European Junior and Young Rider Championships into a depressingly muddy affair, one young German lady shone brightly as a ray of sunshine. Seventeen year old Vivien Niemann won team and individual test gold. Before this golden glory she was just a local hero in the south of Germany but in Broholm, Denmark, she became the junior rider break out star of 2011.