The story of the World Championship silver medalists, Thibeau Spits and Impressionen-K van't Kattenheye

When Impress-K van’t Kattenheye joined the Spits family in 2017, Thibeau was 16 and the stallion was two years old. Thibeau Spits’ father, Patrik—himself a show jumper at the five-star level—discovered Impress when he was two years old. His friend Niels Bruynseels was hosting an auction. Spits combined inspecting the horses with a ride on his Harley-Davidson. The Spits and Bruynseels stables are located not far from each other near Mechelen. By the time Spits was ready to drive off again, he hadn’t even noticed that there was another horse standing in the pasture next to the parking lot. Anyone who’s ever heard a Harley-Davidson roar right next to them knows: it sends shivers down your spine. When Spits started the engine, the horse in the pasture bolted and leaped so high that Spits knew immediately: it’s this one or none. That was Impress-K van’t Kattenheye.

It took a bit of negotiating skill to acquire Impress-K van’t Kattenheye when he was just two years old. But Spits didn’t give up, and so the stallion came to the family’s farm, where horses have been bred and trained for three generations. Thibeau has three siblings, all of whom also ride. “We grew up with it,” he says. And anyone who has ever watched his grandfather, Jos Ceulemans, make an important decision knows this: This family lives and breathes horses, 24/7. The year Thibeau graduated from high school, he turned pro, and Impress-K became one of his first projects—essentially his signature piece.

One of the country’s most successful young riders

Thibeau was already a familiar face in Belgium at that point. Riding various horses, he was a regular member of the European Championship teams, from the Children’s category all the way up to the Young Riders. At his first European Championship in 2015 in Wiener Neustadt, he came away empty-handed in terms of medals. Germany won the team gold medal in the Children’s division that year. Team Germany consisted of Britt Roth and Hannes Ahlmann, who, last weekend—at the same time as Thibeau’s World Championship victory—took first and second place in Germany’s U25 Jumping Cup proved. This fact alone puts Thibeau’s success into perspective—and highlights the importance of the right horse for a talented rider’s career.

During his time as a junior rider, Thibeau Spits won four gold medals—three in team competition and one in the individual competition. Riding Classic Touch DH, a daughter of Casall, he capped off his junior career with two gold medals.

All along, he also consistently rode young horses—not just Impress-K, but others as well. At the 2021 World Championships for Young Show Jumpers, he had three talented horses competing—one for each age class—and he took all three to the finals. Impress was six years old at the time and, finishing seventh, was the highest-placed of Thibault’s young horses that year. Anyone who has ever competed in Lanaken knows just how fierce the competition is there and what a seventh-place finish means in that context. It’s a true talent-spotting event where careers like those of Gazelle (Kent Farrington) and Clooney (Martin Fuchs) got their start.

The Breakthrough

In the years that followed, Thibeau introduced Impress to the world of elite sport. Thibeau Spits says that what sets Impress apart is not just his incredible talent. “He’s super intelligent. You never have to show him anything more than once—he understands immediately and then he can do it. And he’s the sweetest and friendliest stallion you can imagine.” These qualities, along with his ability, served him well in the sport.

The powerful black horse rarely placed at the very top in international junior show jumping competitions. But the mistakes he made could be counted on one hand. At age eight, the pair achieved their first top placements in Grand Prix events at 1.40 and 1.45 meters. A year later, they competed in their first 1.50-meter show jumping events, celebrated their first Grand Prix victory in Ghent, were named to the Prague Lions’ Global Champions League team, and got a taste of the big, wide world of show jumping. Throughout this, Thibeau had the support of Niels Bruynseels, his trainer and mentor. In fact, Bruynseels’ influence is evident in Thibeau’s riding style, which remains refined and light even on a powerhouse like Impress.

Incidentally, the other horse Thibeau had available for that tour was the 12-year-old Zangersheider stallion Calvino II de Muze, whom he rode for breeder Danny Nijs. Calvino II was later sold to the Iron Dames team and ridden by Janne Friederike Meyer-Zimmermann (and is now ridden by Angelica Augustsson Zanotelli). But Impress stayed.

Thibeau and Impress’s journey together has been marked by milestones. They celebrated their first major triumph at the 2024 Global Champions Tour stop in Riesenbeck: They won the Grand Prix—ahead of Marcus Ehning and Coolio, ahead of their compatriot Abdel Said and Bonne Amie, and ahead of Sophie Hinners and Singclair, all of whom were in the jump-off with them. Shortly thereafter, they were part of a CSIO5* Nations Cup team for the first time in Dublin.

The 2025 season began. In three Nations Cup—or League of Nations—competitions, the pair had only one fall, thereby strongly establishing themselves as contenders for the European Championship team in La Coruña. It was Thibeau’s first European Championship at the senior level. It ended with a team gold medal. The only mistakes the pair made in Spain were two time penalties.

Thibeau had proven that he not only knows how to ride, but is also capable of systematically preparing a horse for a championship and delivering under pressure. That was exactly what he demonstrated in Aachen—even though—or perhaps precisely because—the competition began with a bitter disappointment.

The Turning Point at the World Championships

In the first round of the Nations Cup, Thibeau and Impress had a knockdown. “I was pretty devastated. I felt like I’d lost everything I’d ever dreamed of because of a completely unnecessary mistake.” But Thibeau did what sets people with a winner’s mentality apart. He didn’t let it get him down; instead, he came up with a strategy. “After that, I changed my mindset. I told myself I had to trust him and his talent.”

The results were already evident the very next day—the decisive day of the Team World Championships, Nations Cup Round II. Ludger Beerbaum said the course was about 40 percent more difficult than the first round. No problem for Impress. He just flew right through it. Flawless. Together with Abdel Said and Quaker Brimbelles, Thibeau and Impress thus contributed the lion’s share to the Belgian team’s silver medal.

A Dream Come True

When the individual show jumping final began at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Thibeau Spits and Impress-K van’t Kattenheye were in 15th place in the rankings with 5.16 penalty points. But one pair after another made mistakes, while they did what Impress does best: deliver. Faultless in the first round, faultless in the second round. That meant silver for Thibeau at his first World Championships, thanks to Impress-K van’t Kattenheye.

It cannot be said often enough what a masterful achievement it was on the part of course designer Frank Rothenberger that, in the end, only the three medalists emerged from the final with a clean slate. And that the title went to the only pair that didn’t have a single knockdown throughout the entire World Championships—namely, Steve Guerdat and Dynamix de Belheme from Switzerland.

There was Thibeau, standing on the World Championship podium in Aachen—the “Wimbledon of equestrian sports”—with Steve Guerdat standing next to him, the very man he had described as his greatest idol in an FEI interview a few years ago. And all this at just 25 years old. “My career has only just begun, and it can’t get much better than this. I never dared to even dream of this,” he said, still marveling an hour after the award ceremony at everything that had happened that day.

It was probably that very carefree attitude that turned out to be exactly the right strategy. “After winning the team medal on Friday, a lot of the pressure was lifted. After that, I told myself: Just give it a try and enjoy it.”