22 May 2021

Pony in focus: Kitty

The horses and ponies that we drive are the stars of the driving sport. In the report 'Pony in focus' we will be telling the story of one horse or pony who deserves a moment in the spotlight.

In 2009, The Belgian driver Sven Tinlot received a very special present from his wife Evi Vandersmissen: a five-year-old haflinger mare named Kitty. With the help of Evi, Marc van Vlasselaer and Jenny Veenstra the duo has grown over the past 12 years into a very successful combination. Time to get to the bottom of how the nickname ‘Pocket Rocket’ came to be!

Not happy with a Haflinger

During his time studying equine management at Deurne (NL) Sven trained quite a few showjumpers. It was through meeting Frederik Jans that he came into contact with combined driving, and he ended up grooming for him for a number of years. It wasn’t long before the rather competitive Sven came to the conclusion that he really enjoyed driving, but wanted to get behind the lines himself.

Shortly after Sven met his soon to be wife Evi in a café, he received Kitty from her as a present. “Evi had found Kitty via an ad online. She was stabled in the neighborhood and belonged to a young girl whos interest had turned from ponies to boys. The parents didn’t want anything to do with horses and Kitty was hardly backed under saddle. When we went to go look at her, they jumped on her back as quickly as possible, then quick through the gate, once around the apple orchard and back inside again. It was interesting to say the least,” laughs Sven. “At first, I wasn’t completely happy with a Haflinger, but hey, in the end she turned out to be not just any normal Haflinger!”

Driving on the dirtbike track

“Kitty was the first horse or pony I had ever owned. Up until that moment I had ridden numerous horses for other people but had never bought one myself. I had never trained a horse to drive, but during my training at Deurne I had learned how to double lunge as well as having some experience with standardbreds and sulkies. Together with Marc we hitched her, which was a bit exciting at times. We drove on a dirtbike track that was entirely hills. It all went well, but Marc did have the advice to use a bridle with blinkers the next time we drove.”

CAI Exloo 2018
Photo: Krisztina Horváth

Trophy Winner

Despite how competitive Sven is, it was never his intention to drive at a World Championship. “I just had the idea to start driving and see where we ended up.” This ended up going much differently than planned. Just over a year after Kitty came to Sven and Evi, they were already achieving good results at national competitions. They capped off their year by winning the MenSport Trophy in 2011: “That was an amazing experience during Paard&Koets in s’Hertogenbosch. There we were in the arena beside Saskia Siebers and Axel who had won the Trophy for the Netherlands.”

Driving is fun

The measured training that the pair had with Marc van Vlasselaer proved to be paying off. “We really gave Kitty the chance to develop slowly and invested a lot of time in her. Evi rode her regularly under saddle and trained with Jenny Veenstra, Marc’s partner. Marc is himself not a competitive driver, and his relaxed outlook was a good influence on us. The priority was having fun in a relaxed and productive way.

Semi-professional

“The transition from national to international competitions went very smoothly. Ermelo in 2015 was our first international competition and it was definitely an eye opener. We saw how important it was to take the sport seriously. But unknowingly we were already doing a large part of that ourselves. With Marc and Jenny as our trainers and Evi as our veterinarian/osteopath, we had all of the tools to function as a semi-professional team. It was at this point where we started putting things into perspective. We had already been to a few World Championships as spectators, but more and more often World Championship competitors were finishing behind us at international competitions…”

Sven and Kitty at their first international show in Ermelo 2015
Photo: Rinaldo de Craen

Low Point

Sven and Kitty’s consistent presentations earned them a place on the Belgian Team headed to the 2017 World Championships in Minden. After a good start in the dressage, Sven and Kitty tipped over in the marathon. “That was a low point in my career. I hadn’t driven long with this carriage and made a steering error which resulted in us driving against a pole and tipping over. I was so disappointed, not just for myself, but for the entire team that put their trust in me. After the marathon we put Kitty back into the carriage, it was all I could do to keep the tears out of my eyes.”

Two years later they once again represented the Belgian team at the World Championships in Kisbér-Ászár. There they ended up in 22^nd place individually and the Belgian team finished in fourth place.

World Championship Kisbér-Ászár 2019
Photo: Krisztina Horváth

Pocket Rocket

In January we published a photo of Sven and Kitty at the World Championships in Kisbér-Ászár for our Hoefnet photo contest. The photo attracted a lot of attention and comments and we noticed that ‘Driving Team Pocket Rocket’ seemed to come up a lot. “The name came about when we were training with Marc and Jenny. I would drive with Marc and Evi would train her horse with Jenny. We drove at the same time and it was during one of these sessions that Jenny commented that Kitty was a ‘Pocket Rocket’, small but fast. And that is how she got the name!”

‘Will to please’

“One of Kitty’s strongest qualities is her hindleg. She uses the leg well and loves doing her job. She has an enormous ‘will to please’ and would rather fall from exhaustion than stop. As much as this is a positive trait, it is also her weakness. When we are warming up, we always begin calm and slowly build up from there. Because if you ever let her completely go, there is no stopping her! Apparently, this is a trait in her breeding as her sire is Mario uit de Polder and they are known to be a difficult line. When we arrived in Dillenburg and were at the passport control, the steward asked us, ‘Is this an easy pony?’ I answered ‘No, but it is a good one!’ He told me that many of the ponies from this line were ‘crazy’, and over the years he wasn’t the only one who mentioned it.”

World Championship Minden 2017
Photo: Krisztina Horváth

An unexpected win

“My best moment with Kitty was at the international competition in Le Pin au Haras in 2016. Driving tends to bring us to locations where we normally don’t come, and the showgrounds in Le Pin are really special. My goal was to complete the competition so that we would have a qualification for the World Championships the next year. After dressage I was in fourth place, and in second after marathon. I was convinced that I had hit a ball in cones, so we were busy loading our presentation carriage when we heard from a colleague that the leader Laetitia Maricourt had knocked down a ball and that we had driven double clear. It was only then that I realized that we had won! I was already happy with our presentation, but this was just super!”

Working towards our last Championship

Kitty has brought me so much. We have now been active in the sport for 12 years and we have experienced so much together. She really is a ‘once in a lifetime’ pony and I have learned so much from her. If everything goes well, we hope to qualify once again for the World Championships in Le Pin au Haras. This would be her last world championships as even though she is still fit, we don’t want to push her to the limit just so that we can keep competing. We have been asked a few times to go to the Haflinger Championships in Ebbs, Austira, but that is just two weeks before the World Championships and I would rather go there!”

Photo:

Palmares

Belgian Championship Booischot 2014: 2^ndBelgian Championship Elsegem 2016: 1^stBelgian Championship Elsegem 2017: 2^ndBelgian Championship Booischot 2019: 3^rdBelgian Championship Aywaille 2020: 2^ndCAI Le Pin au Haras 2016: 1st
CAI Exloo 2018: 2^nd
CAI Lisieux 2019: 2^nd