What are the 2012 achievements that made you smile most?

[measles]

It's a cold, frosty and somehow nostalgic evening out there and as 2012 is almost at an end I was thinking back over the year and what we have achieved, what made me smile most so I will go first.

I think that it is B's journey with his homebred 12.1hh pony, Poppy, that has been extra special this year. B was 3yo when Poppy was born 5 years ago

and they have been chums together while they both grew up Aside from a month with a very small, lightweight adult friend riding her away this spring, B has done all of the work with her himself and they are beginning to form a very pleasing partnership I think

His 9th birthday present, Bounce, quickly made us smile while she made her way into our hearts (and quilts and shopping bags and bins... )

We were concerned that the other dogs might not accept her (we have 3 other Jack Russells, for our sins ) but she found special ways to endear herself

We've been very fortunate to have some lovely horses like Micky to produce

and made lots of new friends To help A's developing business after lots of saving we were able to make some investments in the yard and put in an additional sand turnout paddock, all weather paths to the fields, something I've wanted to do for a long time

and with the help of the highly recommended and competitive Landtech Solutions we were after many years able to put down new arena surface

New fencing is still a dream away but every time I go out to the arena the springy surface makes me grin like a cheshire cat

What about 2012 will make you look back and smile?

 

[Spendtoomuch]

Your year sounds great, well done on all.
My horsy highlights have to be getting our first bd points and all the progression we made to get there.
Other horsy highlight is winning our first together and horses first ever sj competition (he had never jumped when I got him just under two years ago and I had lost all my confidence jumping) felt like a real achievement
Non personal highlights were going to the dressage at the olympics and watching gb win gold
Also buying my warmblood yearling will hopefully prove to be an achievement

 

[madhector]

Moving up north, some amazing training, finding desiel our new puppy (abandoned at a petrol station) and get 76% with fitz at aff Nov.

 

[nikkimariet]

Winning BD Novice Area Festivals with Fig, teaching my kitten to fetch and putting on half a stone

 

[miss_c]

Genie's had an AMAZING year competetively.

BRC Area Dressage - 2nd in our Arena

Won the qualifier for BRC Championships at Royal Windsor Horse Show and came 7th at the Finals

BRC Summer Dressage we came 4th in our arena, and 3rd in the Riding Test

Went to the BD Regionals at Addington

Went to the BRC Nationals at Lincoln

BRC Winter Dressage - 2nd in our arena (again!)

Titchy's year has been dominated by her being backed!!!

And today she had her first ever clip, being angelic for it!

For me, the best bit has been getting my 'own' yard. Ok, I'm renting it, but it's my little bit of heaven and has everything I need - 2 stables, hay barn/feed room, open barn on the yard, 3 1/2 acres, 20x40 school, and nobody annoying!

 

[Liath]

My biggest achievement was feeling confident enough to canter my new horse across the open hill with another horse.... this time last year I wasn't sure I'd even get on another horse, let alone own one I felt this confident with

 

[Javabb94]

For me it was competing properly for about 7 years! This summer has been great and I have rejoined BS and done my first BE. I have accomplished something with Java after him hardly being able to keep a cross pole in the cups to jumping consistent double clears around 1m (big dodgy measured 1m's )

Also obviously... Getting the wonderful Abbie really has topped this year off, she is just such a lovely horse and she is forever surprising me with her great attitude to everything!

And GB got the gold too

Can't wait for 2013

Measles - love the pic of Ben with Poppy as a foal and seeing the pic of now, it's such a lovely picture

 

[MandyMoo]

everyone's 2012's sound so good well done to all!


I would say my biggest highs of 2012 are:
1) Socks arriving at our yard
2) getting double clear (and winning) our first 85cm class with Socks, and feeling confident doing so - it has taken a long while to get my confidence back to where it is now! onwards and upwards!
3) jumping a course of fences in a lesson with one or two at 1m05 on Socks - felt BRILLIANT afterwards, even though I felt sick before/during

 

[jess_asterix]

Finishing in the top 10 in every BE event we have done.
Winning our first BE100 together and making an appearance in H&H with a picture and Headline!

Qualifying for Badminton Grassroots 2013 in our first year together.
Qualifying BD Novice and Elementary Area Festivals

 

[Tiarella]

My biggest achievement this year is having gone from a very lame stiff crippled little new forest that i didnt think I'd ever be able to ride again to coming 2nd in his first ever novice having skipped the prelims on my beastly Hampshire warmblood onwards and upwards!

 

[Delicious_D]

Biggest achievement? Realising no matter what, i will always have my horse by my side until the time comes for her to go to rainbow bridge. We have had a very turbulent year with a lot of heartache and worry, but we are coming out of it, together.

The best bit? Realising what a bond i have with my horse, so much so she follows me like a puppy and calm down enough for the vet to do all those horrid things she rarely needs sedating.

 

[JenTaz]

Biggest achievement this year has to be the 400 mile move from home to uni and how well taz settled in within 10 minutes it was like he hadn't travelled for 8 hours on the box,

The next has to be getting proper lessons again and getting back out competing, since the beginning of october we have been place in all but one competition we have done, coming first last weekend in a prelim dressage test with 66.96% over the moon as he was lame all last winter due to an old injury flaring up again.

We also done our first affiliated dressage class, which was pretty exciting!

Very much looking forward to 2013 and hoping that in summer when we make the 400 mile journey home again he settles at home just as fast as he did when we got to wales in september.

 

[Stoxx]

In amongst the rubbish I've had some pretty special moments this year.
Getting a very unexpected wildcard to the Area Festival Champs at Hartpury made for much excitement!

Had a terrible regionals but my boy more than made up for that by doing his best test to date & winning his novice Area Festival by a huge margin qualifying directly to the Finals. And we got a pic in the H&H!

So that's three of my lifetime goals achieved in one year... got to be happy with that!

 

[glamourpuss]

Moving my horses up to our farm. I did have a wobble initially with not having the facilities & friends on a livery yard but now I wouldn't change a thing!
My youngster completing his first ODE. A slight senior moment where I got my imperial & metric measurements a little confused meant instead of the titchy class I thought I had entered it was 2'11''
It also had a proper old fashioned coffin under trees & a trakehner. nothing he had seen before. The feeling he gave me around that course was indescribable. I have never enjoyed a round as much.
I cannot, CANNOT wait for the 2013 season

 

[alwaysbroke]

Measles just love that first pic,

a few things in the AB/D_K household that have made us smile

J, 2 years ago was scared of men and sj fillers sent him flying to the opposite end of the school, so to see him and D_K out eventing was special

unfortunately an injury put pay to most of the season, we were so close to losing him just having him still with us is a major achievement

at long last the big lad V stopped growing and was able to start eventing as D_K received some very welcome sponsorship

youngest daughter managed a bit of unaffiliated eventing at last

I decided to 'man up' with the help of D_K and a lesson with LouiseM and got out and about on my boy

and best of all in May we bought a very young skinny dun

he was supposed to be a project to sell on but in true AB household style he has stayed and become Mini D_K's pony, he hasn't put a hoof wrong and Mini loves him to bits

sorry about the size of the pics photobucket is not my friend tonight

 

[star]

Five top 10 finishes in the five BE90 events we did this year. Our best BE dressage of 25.5

Getting our first BD point

Getting him back out competing after 6 long months of rehab following a stupid tendon injury from him being an idiot in the field.

 

[saz5083]

2012 has been one of those years Id rather forget tbh But some things have still made me smile, as horses always can.

January saw my lovely coloured eventer like this

with a very poor prognosis of ever returning to any form of athletic function and a write off eventing wise. After four long months of box rest with him becoming increasingly difficult I was very happy when this day came in April

Very slow return to work and he has defied the odds by not only returning to full work (well, no jumping but everything else is doable!) but by making my year two weeks ago at our first outing since the 2011 event season ended and winning at BD novice

Aim is to keep him going and happy through 2013 and do some elementarys and maybe a medium or two!

With the boy written off at the start of the year I made the decision to move my plans forward and buy another youngster to eventually event. I picked this lad up in March, barely handled and pretty wild

Lots of handling and a bit of polish and he had a couple of little outings in the show ring

He's now gone fluffy again and continues to grow upwards. His attitude is wonderful. He's brave and bold and a bit cheeky and full of himself He will be backed this time next year, Im quite excited about his future.

Finally spent some time playing with my old boy, who is still spritely at 21 years young

 

[SpruceRI]

Although it was a relatively quiet year for us, we managed to fit 5 successful horse trials in.

2 x 1st place
2 x 2nd place
1 x 3rd

And at last achieved an aim, to win a RC Champs. Couldn't have done it without a nicer bunch of people/team.

 

[EveningStar]

Acquiring my Billy beast after 5 years of being horseless was a rather significant achievement for me this year I absolutely worship him and have learned so much already.

Coming in at reserve champ in our category (admittedly not a large category ) at our very first dressage show was pretty special too.

 

[Vickijay]

What a nice thread.

Mine was backing my homebred and getting out and about on her and loosing the (almost) 6 stone I needed to loose to be able to ride the teeny little midget!!

Also getting a kitten and annoying her as much as she annoys me was pretty fun...

 

[measles]

Vickijay - love the kitten pictures!

Enjoying reading about your positive bits and the tremendous success some of you have had

 

[Vickijay]

I'd like to say that she loved them too but I nearly lost an arm getting the outfit on her!!!!

 

[maxine1985]

Major achievement for me this year is turning my 4 yr old ex race horse into an eventer

Trying her out at the trainers in May this year

5 months on she's competing 1m sj, prelim dressage and I will aim her at the 5yr old BE classes next season and hopefully do some ROR dressage and BE classes

Also had the lovely new addition our Whippet puppy 'Slinky' who is growing rapidly!!

Am looking forward to 2013!!

 

[BeckyD]

I've had a fantastic year, but we spent the first 7/8 months *almost* getting there with the eventing, until finally we turned the corner in September, and did 4 clear XC rounds in a row, including at Oasby BE90 - god knows how many attempts it took to get there but we did it!! That was one of the high points of my riding life actually, and I know it shouldn't have been so difficult to achieve but for some reason it was! Also, being on a team for the RC areas was exciting as I've never been on a team before.

Also, being in the top 3 (several wins) at almost every unaffiliated dressage competition we did and winning our first unaff Novice, that was amazing.

Having just one down in the jump off in my first ever British Novice. WOOHOO!

And the feeling Bill is giving me now in his flatwork is just incredible. WOW.

I love him to bits. In the words of my instructor on Tuesday night, "He is SUCH a superstar". That made me grin. He really is!

 

[monkeybum13]

My dressage phobic horse decided that dressage isn't that bad after all and won a lovely prize for winning grassroots dressage series.

Finally getting to show jump competitively winning her section at her first competition and continuing to jump lovely rounds from then on.

Jumping some things out hunting that I would never jump in cold blood. Just need to get the photographer to snap me jumping

 

[googol]

Lovely thread
2012 has been one of extreme ups and downs for me
Lost my beautiful mare at the start of the year, sometimes feels like yesterday
Got my cheeky new boy a while later. He has not put a foot wrong yet and we just gel! He's given me so much confidence and I'm so proud of how his flatwork has come on, can't wait for 2013!
He's so different from my mare to look at (she was dark bay he is grey and a bit smaller) but some of the wee things remind me of her (he tilts his head to the side when he thinks he's getting a treat etc) and I like that, it's oddly comforting!

Love everyone's pics! ESP the wee dun pony and the kitten!

 

[AbFab]

I love threads like these. It's so inspiring seeing what people have achieved on so many levels.

For me, being able to ride at Equifest was huge We didn't do spectacularly well and Saf developed a sudden fear of speakers and music (great considering 2 of our classes were DTM!) but the sun shone and I had a holiday with my beautiful girl and OH. Heaven!

(we didn't spend the whole time dressed like that!!)

The other thing was affiliating her to BD and qualifying for the areas at prelim. Not a massive achievement in a lot of books but for her it was huge. She's not a natural dressage horse by any means and it saps all of my strength to get her to work 'properly', but she tries so hard and it felt great to see all our hard work pay off.

The other massive thing that happened this year was getting Fairy! I had decided I wanted an ex-racer, but wasn't planning on getting one until January. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately!) I went along to a TRC open day and it was love at first sight. She looked at the crowd, exhaled and promptly fell asleep. The voice in my head said 'oh &*$%*, you're going to end up with another grey mare!'

And finally, 9 weeks after she came home, the baby TB went to her first ever dressage comp and got 67% in the intro B and got her first frilly, a yellow one!!

It's been a pretty good year! Here's to 2013!

 

[doratheexplorer]

I have had a pretty good year with B, but the icing on the cake has to be coming 6th at Munstead (2) in the BE90, and knowing that we can be competetive!!

Also starting my new job and having the oppertunity to hunt and not killing myself or B - that has to be a highlight!!

 

[humblepie]

Maxine 1985 - that is super progress and generally love all the photos on the thread.

Competition wise this has been the year I have competed the least since I was 4 years old I would imagine. Having finished off last year on the high of a Nat Championship win, this year we have barely ventured out.

Achievements have had therefore to be outside of the ring - probably getting the new ex racehorse to do upwards transitions just off a very quite leg aid rather than the pony club style I initially had to adopt and going for some nice hacks with both horses.

 

[showjump]

Great tread Measles.

Our three highlights;
1. Getting my yard at home finished (Well all most!) But love having them there outside my windows.
2. Progressing well with my mare, qualifying Blue Chips, Scope British Nov reginals and well over due to jump some Newcomers.
3. Passing my class 1, LOVE being able to take myself places!

Getting Measles surface for her arena sorted of course is in there somewhere!