Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
Prelude:
*Before the 2024 Paris Olympics, I had the opportunity to sit down (on Zoom) with Mackenzie Drazan Cook and Karl Cook to gain insights into their journey as riders and business people, their passion for the sport, and their vision for the future. At the time, they were based in France close to Versailles, and had just participated in the opening ceremonies. They had no idea about what was about to come, but they were training and preparing for the Games with Karl as an alternate rider for Team USA. I had a lot of questions for them then, and I have even more now, so I am looking forward to catching up with them upon their return to North America. Anyway, hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did!*
Back in 2018, NOËLLE FLOYD spoke with Mackenzie about her journey as a rider and entrepreneur. Life has changed a lot for her since then, but she remains a passionate founder of MiResource, TEAM and as a dedicated equestrian. Now married to Karl Cook, newly minted Olympian Silver medalist and NF instructor, they are currently based in France for the lead up and duration of the Olympic Games, with plans to move back home to San Diego once the Games are over.
Our conversation covered a (wide) variety of topics, and although I went into this interview as a starstruck fan-girl of them both, I came out with so much admiration for them and everything they do. They are truly lovely people with a passion for horses and dedication to lifelong learning and the sport.
Let’s dive in!
Megan: What has been happening over the last few days in France, at the Olympics?
Mackenzie: Karl and I just went to the opening ceremonies yesterday. It was so cool to be able to be there to watch that. But I have to say that I had a completely different experience from Karl. I was nice and dry and with some friends, and well-fed and hydrated. Poor Karl on the other hand got to stay in the pouring rain for five hours.
Karl and Mackenzie on FaceTime during the opening ceremonies
Karl: It was pretty cool to get to see because we've been here for three months leading up to this day. We’ve been into Paris, of course, while we’ve been here, and we’ve seen them starting to set up for the Games and to build a lot of the stadiums.
Mackenzie: Then we went in again on Bastille Day, which is similar to our July 4, and we saw a different side of Paris, in their progression of setting up for the Games. And then to be there on the day of opening ceremonies was pretty crazy.
Karl: The feat they pulled off with just the sheer amount of fencing, and coordination, and zoning, for everybody to be able to watch was insane.
Megan: Congratulations on all of your success at the 5* level in Europe. Was the plan always to come to Europe to show, or was the goal to make the Olympic team?
Karl: Yes, the goal was always the Olympics. That was the reason we came over. It wasn’t just a fun summer in Europe showing, it was always about the Olympics. It’s a long way to come with us being from California. It might be different if we were coming from JFK to Charles de Gaulle, maybe I’d show in Europe more. But since it’s a harder trip for the horses (and us) we came to give it our best shot at the Olympics.
Megan: So once the Olympics are over, will you be back to competing in North America again?
Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
Karl: Yes, for sure.
Megan: What did you find was the difference between showing horses in Europe versus North America?
Karl: There are positives and negatives to both systems. I think if there were more of a hands- on style in the US, that would help. Not for everyone. There should still be those full-service trainers. But also I think that in Europe, more people would be more into the sport if there were those full service trainers. Similar in the North American style. Some people like to pit one against the other, but I think that’s wrong. There are positives to both systems, I just wish they were more integrated. If there were an American system in Europe, and a European system in the US, I think that would help the number of people who would do horse sports.
I think the biggest difference is how hands-on people are in Europe. In the US, the man-hours to care for the horse are absorbed by your trainer, and the grooms that are hired by your trainer’s barn. The shipper is hired by your trainer, the entries are done most of the time by your trainer or their assistants. In Europe, it takes the same amount of labor, but that labor is done by the individual. Riders enter their own classes, they drive themselves to the shows, and they stay in their horse boxes.
Megan: That makes a lot of sense to me, and it's interesting because I've only shown in North America, and it is like what you're saying. The trainer takes on a lot of the coordination, pretty much everything, so the competitor doesn't really get the full spectrum of knowledge that they may be looking for. They’re also constrained by which shows the trainer is going to. And no one would ever think to just go to a show on their own. That would be horrifying to most people!
Karl: Exactly. Again, there are positives and negatives to both. I just wish that in the US there were options for people who wanted a more hands-on style of doing horse sports, whether they're doing Jumping, Dressage, or Eventing. I wish there was that option. That still might not be the majority of people, but I wish there was that option. And conversely, I think in Europe, the American style of training operation would have some clients. The goal is to widen the range of people that could be involved in horse sport. If you have to do everything yourself, buy your truck, drive your truck, be a licensed driver of your truck, there would be a lot of people who just wouldn’t have time to do that, but they would have enough time if XYZ were taken care of for them (the North American style). I think both systems could help both continents. One is not universally better.
Megan: Because of that, do you think it is more accessible, financially, for people to show over there?
Karl: Yes, for so many reasons. I mean, none of the shows we've gone to were you were able to bring a golf cart or dirt bikes. There physically wasn't the space for golf carts or dirt bikes, or set-ups with couches.
In Europe, there isn't the option for grooming stalls or tack stalls or set-ups because they need to sell all the stalls for horses. There are a number of people that live on-site and do not have to pay for hotel rooms. So many more people live on-site in Europe. The services are much lower since most people come with their own trucks, they come with all of the feed for their horses, their hay, and their grain. So they don’t have to buy any of that at the horse shows, which gets marked up at the shows.
At this point now in North America, even a lot of the top 5* shows that I've been to this year, if you showed up to that show as a 3* in the US, with the level of services they’re used to in North America, people would riot! But you're in Europe, it's a 5*, the CSIO. But in the US, if something isn't perfectly handled for them, they would be very upset with the amount of money they’re paying. “How dare you tell me I can't bring my golf cart?”! Or “I need three stalls for my setup and I need eight grooming stalls for four horses!”
We would go to shows in the US with, say, eight horses. We would do two to three grooming stalls and a feed stall. So 25 percent of our stalls, not including any setup, have no horses in them. So I'm paying for those stalls without horses in them. And also as a show organizer, those stalls are being held without a horse.
So the horse doesn’t have entry fees and they're having fewer rounds. It’s this cycle where everything gets more and more expensive, and by the time we realize it, we're so far down the path. And really, to show horses, you don't need all this stuff. They really don’t. It’s mostly set up for humans.
Mackenzie: There’s even room for one chair in the aisleway.
Karl: But, there is a good part about that which makes it cheaper. And it has other effects too on the overall experience. If you don't have your set up to sit down in, you’re more likely to go to the show restaurant or bar.
Mackenzie: Or you watch.
Karl: Exactly. Or you watch what’s going on in the ring, and you interact with people, as opposed to just hiding in your setup. You’re saving money and you’re more interactive in the show world. And if you need the number of stalls to absorb the cost of there not being any horses in the stalls, then you go to a certain number of facilities that have that number of stalls. If you need to have golf carts, you need to go to facilities that can absorb golf carts. Then, maybe you need to go to a show that has a certain number of rings to absorb the horses that warrant the set ups, and so you then get to where you can only go to these mega facilities. All these things you get in the mega facilities, you don’t get at the special ones. As long as you are going to a place that has the right size stalls and amenities for the horses, horses don’t give a shit about the set up or the golf cart! All of that stuff has nothing to do with horse care. It's all to do with making it simpler for humans. And that costs money.
Megan: Okay, that was super interesting. But I want to switch gears for a minute and ask you about Caracole de la Roque. What kind of things have you been doing ahead of the Olympics with her, how do you prepare her, and what makes her so special?
Karl: I think the biggest thing is that we're doing nothing different. I’ve finally gotten to a certain place I’d been working toward, so just because I am here now, I don’t think I should change anything with her. That doesn't mean that there aren't little tiny refinements along the way, but a small refinement is not a complete change. And I think a lot of people think about completely changing things, and that creates an issue.
With Caracole, I think we had a lot of great highs and lows last year, and we learned a lot along the way. She’s a unique horse because she’s all or nothing. It either works unbelievably well and she will win by at least three seconds, or we fail catastrophically. There's not much of a middle ground with her.
Megan: Well, I haven't seen any of the failures. I don't think people are as familiar with that.
Karl: Looking back, when the failures happened, it was actually showing me things I didn't see before, that I needed to work on. I think we've just gotten better and more refined throughout that process.
Megan: Karl, you're pretty well-known in the horse world for your unique solutions to problems and for inventing different things that may not even exist yet. For example, the Swelham bit, the barefoot situation, and homemade studs on Caracole. Can you tell me a little bit more about some of those unconventional things that you do with your horses?
Karl: We started with the Swelham, when there was no bit that was on the market that could do what I wanted to do.
And with the shoes, she was going barefoot for a while, and then this summer we had to show on grass, and you can't do that barefoot, so we put shoes on. That has been an interesting journey. But to me, those two examples are like anything with horses: you have to keep pushing the boundaries of what’s available, keep finding the things that work for your horse. If something starts to work, you have to figure out why, and you have to figure out how you can make it better.
Megan: Do you have any advice or resources for riders who maybe are struggling with their horse on a specific issue?
Karl: Yes. But my answer is not going to make them happy. Read books. People in our sport believe that you need to learn in person and only in person. As if there's no written record of anything in our sport ever, and that is just wrong. Fortunately, the information is written. Unfortunately, it takes time to find it. It takes experience to know when you read something, how accurate or inaccurate it is, or how applicable or inapplicable certain things are–but the information is out there. And even the most simple stuff, like when you're talking to your vet, you should know the anatomy of your horse, and things like that are easy to look up on the internet or in books.
Mackenzie: When Karl talks about books and reading books, and he says “you need to read enough books”–you have to understand that Karl is a huge US history fanatic. And when he reads books, he reads the original version of a book that will reference a speech. Karl will then go on and order all the books that have been referenced to that document. And then he reads those books. And whenever they reference something else, he reads those books. So, he takes the same sort of degree of detail to horse books, where he has a very large collection.
Karl: My oldest horse book that I have is on riding and training of horses, and it was printed in 1627, and I have the original. But you probably don’t need to go that far!
Mackenzie: That's Karl’s library!
Karl: [But] you can get a reprint of that book on Amazon the next day. There's so much information out there . . . look things up on the internet! I think there's a fear in horse sports that you can only learn to ride by being in the saddle. No! There's so much you can learn out of the saddle, whether it's reading, watching, or experiencing things. You don't just learn by riding, and unfortunately people feel, or have been told, or the culture is that way, that the only way you learn to ride is in the saddle.
Megan: Do you think there’s a bit of a culture, in North America at least, that if you go outside of your trainer, it almost feels like a betrayal, and everything the trainer says is what goes, even down to vet decisions and things like that.
Karl: I am in a lucky position in a lot of ways in that regard, but I do understand that. I've been working with my trainer, Eric Navez, for 12 years now, and he's French. And so when we started training with him, it never was training in a training barn like you have in the States. Things were always more free. He had his way and his way has obviously been insanely successful, but it was just a freer environment. And I wish that was more common.
I believe a lot of times trainers have that more insular feeling because they personally are afraid.
And some of it is not all their fault, because if a person [client] doesn't want to be pushed and they say, here's this article to read. And then that person says, okay, well, this trainer 10 miles down the road will just do everything for me, and I don't have to think, so I'm going to go train with that person. So it's not all the trainer’s fault.
Everyone says they want to learn, and they want to be better, and they want to have better results and do better for their horses. The problem is the workload that it takes to get there: once they see it, a lot of times they back away from it.
Megan: Okay, I want to go back to your horses. Do you have any young and up-and-coming horses that people should keep an eye out for?
Karl: We always have some young horses here in Europe, and we have some young horses that my mom has bred at the farm in San Diego–that’s where we do the breeding. That system is always working in the background. It's too hard to say, “look out for this one or that one” because those top horses are incredibly rare. It doesn't matter how good they look at age four, five, six, seven, or eight. It matters how they jump when they hit 160, and they can jump in horrific form but jump 160 and be clear. Many people anoint horses when they’re five or cast horses out when they’re five, and that’s just wrong. Horses will surprise you. At the 160 [level] it’s more their brain than their body.
Megan: Mackenzie, you are also a successful Grand Prix rider. Have you been riding much lately?
Mackenzie: I think ‘successful Grand Prix rider’ is a bit of a stretch! But I have been riding again, and now I have the best trainer in the whole wide world. So it's been really fun to get to learn from Karl, and it's really fun to get to ride together.
Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
Megan: How does that dynamic work? If Karl's being your trainer, are you receptive to his input, or is it a weird dynamic?
Mackenzie: No. I mean, this is his sport. He's clearly way better than I am, and so it's a joy to get to learn from him. So I’m just happy to get to absorb and sponge all of his advice. But, you know, it would be different if he was trying to tell me how to build a software company. But in this case, I'm so happy to get to learn from him.
Megan: And have you been riding over in France as well? And do you have any plans to get back into competing when you get home?
Mackenzie: Yes, I have, and . . . well, we have to ask the trainer.
Karl: Mackenzie was showing in Thermal this year, earlier this year, in January and February, and then we didn't bring the horse that she shows to Florida or to Europe, so it's been a while since showing, but she's ridden throughout, and she's jumped at home. And when we're here in Europe, before we go to shows, she'll jump a little bit.
Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
Megan: Do you have a favorite horse in the barn right now?
Mackenzie: Oh, man. I mean, they're all so different and have such amazing personalities, but the horse that I ride the most is named Especial “Special,” who was one of Karl's speed horses, and she's just amazing. And so she has a special place in my heart. I love them all.
They're all adorable and have such fun, different personalities.
Probably from our crew in Europe, my favorite is probably Coachella “Ella.” She gives the best back rubs. She's very generous. You just touch her withers, and she'll never bite you. And she’ll give you amazing rubs. Such a sweetie.
Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
Megan: So, being a rider yourself and knowing what you know about what's happening on course and seeing your husband flying around, does it make you really nervous? What's going on in your head when he's in the ring?
Mackenzie: Super nervous. I am actually fine all the way up until the moment he walks in the ring, and then when he's riding – then I get nervous. And I always know he's going to do an amazing job. I know his horse is going to do a really good job, but it's just that I want him to do well, and I know he wants to do well. I know the horses want to do well. So I'm super-crazy nervous, but it's a fun kind of nervous. And it's so much fun to get to come and see all these amazing competitions with unbelievable riders, and to get to cheer on Karl. It's a blast.
Photo credit: Helen Cruden
Megan: What would you say you've learned from each other in regards to horsemanship?
Mackenzie: I think one of the things that most impresses me with Karl is his patience and dedication to really understanding each horse. I think a lot of barns have a strategy that works, and they try and roll it out across all as many horses as possible. With Karl and his horses, each horse has a radically different tack set-up, what they do and don't do with the horse; it's completely personalized to each horse and what is best for them, not just trying to apply a formula onto the horse. It's about really understanding their needs, and giving them the time, and being patient with figuring that out. I think that is truly spectacular and unique.
Megan: And Karl? What have you learned from Mackenzie?
Karl: For me, sometimes things become not that fun, because, when you take things to certain limits, one of the elements that can get lost is the fun. And I I think that is part of any high-level sport, pushing those boundaries and just the amount of work that goes in. And I think getting to ride with Mackenzie has helped make it more fun for me again.
Megan: So I am going to shift to asking some business questions. Mackenzie, could tell us a little bit about your company?
Mackenzie: So I started MiResource in 2017. MiResource is a free website anyone can visit, that will guide them through the process of finding and connecting with the right mental health care for them. It’s come a really long way since then. Our goal is to create a world where once you make that brave decision to say, okay, I'm ready to get help, that it's actually easy to find that help. And we've been working towards building out MiResource and understanding mental health care in the United States.
Currently, we have over 9,000 mental health providers, from talk therapy and medication management to residential treatment programs, IOPs, PHPs–basically every type of mental health care you can think of. We're in 45 different states making sure that it's covered by your insurance, that the provider has availability, that it has a cultural context that's important to you, that you feel comfortable, and making it easy for you to find that care and connect with that care.
And then on the side of that too, we're doing a lot of research. We have grants with the National Institute of Mental Health to basically fill in the gaps of science–how do we effectively connect people to the right mental health care? So outside of just making it easy to find and connect with care, we're also doing a lot of work in the scientific world to help push the industry forward.
Megan: So your target market is individuals who are personally looking for help. Do you also work with organizations, hospitals, and health care providers to provide this?
Mackenzie: We do. We work with over 70 different university counselling centers. We actually power their counselling center's provider finders to help them facilitate referrals from inside the counselling center, connecting students to local mental health care. We work with hospitals. We power health insurance companies and provider finders. I'm really trying to help anybody who is trying to help someone connect with care. MiResource basically helps you find that care and connect the person looking for care to the mental health care itself.
Megan: And tell me more about your other business, TEAM.
Mackenzie: TEAM is actually a non-profit, and its purpose is to help guide you through what you should say and do when you're in a sticky situation. For instance, you think your friend might be self-harming. What do you say to them? How do you help connect them to care? Or you're in a relationship and your partner's struggling and it's not a healthy relationship, but you don't know how to navigate that.
TEAM provides resources to individuals to navigate these tricky situations, what to do, what to say so that we can all better support one another. It also helps people find answers to questions like: “How do I find a therapist? How do I navigate mental health care insurance? What if I'm on my parents' insurance plan–will they know if I go to therapy?”
Megan: It sounds like there is a technical aspect to it–do you use AI to pull all these different resources together from everywhere?
Mackenzie: There's definitely AI and lots of really complicated stuff that happens in the background, and that's also happening a lot in our research studies, and what we're building, but then a lot of it is logistical. It's understanding that we've spent a lot of years figuring out how to effectively communicate with mental health providers, how we understand how a therapist group practice works. What does a day in the life of a therapist look like versus a day in the life of a psychiatrist, and a day in the life of a residential treatment program versus what happens in the hospital, and everything in between. Understanding how this mental health care system works and how we can work with it to fill in those gaps to make it easier for people like us to find and connect with that care.
Megan: And do you find the mental health side of things can be a little bit harder to navigate for people because of a stigma that maybe isn't there in medicine?
Mackenzie: Yes. So I think what's challenging about mental health care that we don't see in medicine, at least in the United States, is that if you want a referral for a knee surgeon, it's really easy for your primary care provider to make a referral to a knee surgeon because knee surgeons operate on knees. They're either in network with your insurance or they're not.
They're either good at operating on knees or not good. In mental health care, for lots of historical reasons, it's a lot more fragmented. But just by looking at our licenses or our credentials, you wouldn't know that unless you spoke to us as individuals. So there's a lot of nuance that you need to understand to make an accurate referral or to connect someone to care that you don't have or need in the medical field.
Karl: The problem is that it's very complicated and there’s a lot more pressure on the patient seeking care. Like Mackenzie said, if you say my knee is busted, your primary care provider is very capable of sending you to a knee specialist. But when you go to a primary care provider and you have something you're struggling with, an eating disorder, depression, psychotic episodes, bipolar disorder, they'll say, here's a list of providers. If I have an eating disorder, you should say, call this person–they are a clinical psychologist that specializes in eating disorders, and it should be that simple. You should be able to connect with therapists without having to do all the work!
Mackenzie: Karl does a great job of explaining it beautifully!
*If you want to learn more myteam.org to learn how you can support someone's mental health and miresource.com to find mental health care covered by your insurance.
Megan: So what does a typical day look like for you, Mackenzie? You're over there supporting Karl at the Olympics, but you're also the CEO and founder of a company.
Mackenzie: I think I'm really lucky because my company is all virtual, and we have people all over the world. So, while I'm in Europe, it's amazing because I work a lot with Americans and American companies and universities and health insurance companies, but they're in the US time zone. So that means I go to the barn in the morning, and I can ride a horse or two. And then I normally come back to our apartment, or if we're at a show I'll go back to the show, then back to our hotel. Then I'll work on my laptop and take calls, which normally start around 3 PM at the earliest, which means no dinners. We're working from 3:00 to 8:00 PM. The beauty of it is that our mornings are off of calls, so we are free to be at the barn.
Megan: Karl, on the business side of things besides riding, is the Swelham bit business going to be taking off as a venture, or are you just seeing how it goes right now?
Karl: I mean, obviously, I want it to do well, because I believe in the bit. I know what it's done for me, and for the other people in my barn. The grooms and riders that we have say it also helps them. The Swelham is a lot broader and wider, and it can do a lot more things. And so I really hope that people use it, learn more about it, and use it more because I believe it will help them and help their horse. The more the rider understands the horse and the horse understands the person, the better that relationship is.
It's another one of the products we've been releasing on Walking and Talking, and there are more than a few in the pipeline. I mean, these are all things that I've designed for myself to use for myself. These are not designed to be released. They're all, honestly, ruggedly simple. And because they're not designed to be products, they don't operate like most products.
Megan: So will we hear more about how that’s going on Walking and Talking?
Karl: Yes. There's a couple of products that'll probably come out in the next two months. The Swelham is one of them, but honestly, that project, I mean, we launched it three or four weeks ago or something like that. I've been trying to get it produced for probably two years now. So it takes that long to find the right operation, the right vendor that understands the point, that understands how it needs to be made, that understands certain details. It's not just a hunk of metal. There's a lot of detail there. But when I get home, there's a couple of products in the pipeline that'll be coming out, and then there's obviously others that are longer term.
Mackenzie: Basically, how I would describe Walking and Talking is that Karl, as we've said earlier, is so attentive to detail and has a really high bar for the way products work and feel and the quality of them, and how user-friendly they are and how good they are doing the job they do.
All around Pomponio [Ranch], there's amazing Karl inventions that he makes for his horses and for his team, and he didn't make them to sell them, but there have been a lot of people that have asked him about his inventions. And so Walking and Talking was really created to bring the amazing products that Karl has made for his horses and his team to others, so that they can have them too.
Megan: Okay, now I have some fun questions for you guys. You were recently married in April in Cabo San Lucas. Can you tell me a little bit about that day? What was the most memorable part of that day?
Photo credit: Marlies Heartman
Karl: It’s a place that means a lot to Mackenzie and I. It's where we reconnected again after a lot of years. And to have all of our friends and family down there for that day was what we were hoping for. And it's hard sometimes with a destination wedding, you might be sacrificing the destination for having all the people that you want on that day, but I think we hit pretty much everyone. Mackenzie and her mom–we–designed a great wedding that was so much fun, it was so fluid. I think we accomplished all the goals that we wanted. Being able to have Blueberry (our dog) there was also really important.
Mackenzie: It was a blast. We had a great time. It's wild to walk into a room of 200 people, and you love every single person there, and you want to talk to every single person. It was totally overwhelming and amazing.
Photo credit: Marlies Heartman
Megan: Well, congratulations. And this is kind of a random fun question. Do either of you have a pump-up song you like to listen to before you go into the ring?
Karl: I sleep.
Megan: You sleep? So you don't have nerves or adrenaline that stops you from having a nap?
Karl: No. I think you're the most nervous before you start walking the course. It always looks bigger from the side of the ring. And then when you walk the course, then you start [saying], “okay, this is possible.” And you calm down a little bit.
And then after that, for me, once I've walked the course it doesn't help to obsess about the course over and over again, because then you start hallucinating things that you walked.
So after I walk I pretty much stop thinking about the course. I go take a nap if I'm able to, or if I have to get on, then I'm riding my horse, and I'm not thinking about the course. Then I start warming up, and it's only at the tail end of the warm-up that I'll start remembering the course again. With horses, I don't find that obsessing over anything is helpful long term.
Megan: Mackenzie? Do you have a strategy before you go into competition?
Mackenzie: I have a different strategy than Karl, which would be to go over the course a bunch of times and to close my eyes and remember what I'm planning on doing at each point.
But I think giving myself a second to just go over the course before I go in the ring is also helpful. But then just forgetting that you're at a show. You know–remembering the course, remembering your plan, but then going back to as if you were at home warming up, just focusing on what you always do.
Karl: Yeah. Just riding.
Mackenzie: And it’s kind of like what Karl always says–you know how to jump the course. You know how to jump around, you know how to “ride your horse.” You don't want to suddenly change everything for the one time you go in the ring because that would mean you're doing something completely new and different instead of what you know how to do.
Megan: Karl, is there something that would surprise us to know about Mackenzie?
Karl: I mean, I think Mackenzie is very, very good at riding and is also very competitive. She wants to win, and she also loves her horses and just loves to be around them. And then, right after she shows, she will go back to the barn or back to the RV and start a meeting, and will deliver the best mental health care to anyone who's looking for it. She's able to juggle things better than I can. It's really amazing.
Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
Megan: Mackenzie, what would people be surprised to know about Karl?
Mackenzie: There's so much that people don't know about Karl that's amazing. I think that his voracious appetite for learning and just how brilliant he is outside of horses. Karl's incredibly good at teaching himself whatever he decides he's interested in, and it's kind of like a running joke within the family–”what are you going to become an expert in this next year, Karl?” I would say his new expertise is machining. He machines Caracole’s high-performance studs.
Karl: Yeah. That was fun.
Mackenzie: And he had only machined a bolt one day, and then all of a sudden–BOOM–high performance studs, just from watching YouTube videos on machining nonstop. It’s crazy because I could never do that.
Megan: You have both been so interesting to talk to, and I've loved hearing about everything you have in the works as well as your amazing Olympic experiences! And I can't wait to hopefully catch up with you after you return home to the States!
Shortly after this interview, Karl and Caracole de la Roque were tapped to ride in the Games and won a Silver Medal in Showjumping for Team USA and placed 16th in the Jumping Individual Final of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Tune in for more conversations with Karl and Mackenzie coming soon!
Photo credit: Alden Corrigan Media
*Thank you to Helen Townes for her help editing the transcript.