Caroline Pamukcu is used to being on the go, having competed 18 horses 93 times from beginner novice to advanced in 2024. But she left the show scene in October, as she and her husband Deniz Pamukcu prepared for a new chapter of their life: parenthood.

The couple welcomed daughter Blake Pamukcu, who shares a name with Caroline’s Paris Olympic mount HSH Blake, on Jan. 29.

“I’ve always wanted to have a family, and I’ve always been super close with my family,” Caroline said. “It feels like it’s meant to be. I guess it’s the best way I can put it, it just feels so natural to transition, and I’m beyond lucky—I can’t tell you—my husband has stepped up incredibly. He’s doing so much for me.”

The couple and their families got to know their new addition for a week in their northern base of Springtown, Pennsylvania, before migrating south to Ocala, Florida, where Caroline’s horses spend the winter.

From there Caroline wasted no time getting back in the tack, hopping on a horse for the first time a week after giving birth. While she backed off her competition schedule last fall, only showing three youngsters in the Dutta Corp. USEA Young Event Horse East Coast Championships (Maryland), she didn’t give up riding completely, saddling up for easy rides and doing a trot set here and there.

Her upper-level mounts, who all had their shoes pulled for two months, resumed walking hills and trot sets in December. Sharon White, whom Caroline has been training with for about a year, jumped the horses twice around baby Blake’s arrival.

Caroline did her first event post-pregnancy at Three Lakes Winter II (Florida) Feb. 22-23 to gauge how her horses were feeling before heading to Bouckaert Equestrian Horse Trials International, held March 6-9 in Fairburn, Georgia, where she rode six horses in the Fédération Equestre Internationale divisions, taking the win in the four-star short with HSH Double Sixteen, a 10-year-old Irish Thoroughbred (Robin Des Pres—Azaria, Fruits Of Love) owned by the Double Sixteen Partnership, and finishing fifth in the same division with HSH Tolan King.

“I worked so hard my whole career, like with the sales business, and all that was leading towards getting a good group of owners and good group of horses, and I finally got there,” she said. “And I don’t want to lose it, right? I’m so easily replaceable. There’s a million other me’s, so I just don’t want to lose everything I worked toward, so I kept going as long as I physically could. And then hopefully, this weekend gave everyone kind of a sigh of relief that they don’t have to lose faith in me, and we can keep going.”

We caught up with Caroline to hear about life with a baby, her four-star win, and find out what she’s looking to next.

Tell me a little bit about how you felt “Six” did throughout the weekend.

I love him. I call him my little Jack Russell. I absolutely adore Six. He has so much personality. It’s hilarious. I always have high hopes for him. Him and my Tolan King horse, I describe them as the underdogs. Six is full Thoroughbred. He’s like 15.2-15.3 [hands]—he’s petite; he’s plain bay, extremely unassuming, like you would walk into a barn, and you wouldn’t pick either of them out, right? They’re not tall and beautiful or flashy looking.

He’s pretty good mover, not a superstar, and he’s a good jumper with the biggest step. You wouldn’t think of him as a world champion, but the thing about him is, he’s a good Thoroughbred; he has a heart of gold, and we’ve got a super, super partnership. I trust him, and then he trusts me a 110%; that’s a cool thing. So when I tell him, “All right, buddy, I’m gonna ask you to take a big step here,” he’ll give me everything he can, and if I make a mistake, he won’t hold a grudge against me. He’s a phenomenal athlete.

He competed some in Ireland with Leila Barker, before you got him in 2022. What’s your history with him?

When I was living in England, I did some training with Andrew Nicholson as well, and I definitely learned a lot about his philosophy, how important it is have blood horses. I’ve always been a big fan of blood horses, and [I called my business partner Kelly Hutchinson and said] “We need to find a really blood horse.” And she said, “Oh, I have one for you, but it’s 100% blood.”

I remember trying him, and when I first got on him and was walking around in the arena, I looked at Kelly and the owner, Leila Barker, who produced him and did an amazing job with him, and I said to Kelly “I have to have him.” It was just one of the things, I don’t know, I fell in love with him. For such a little guy, he had such a presence about him.

It’s been six weeks since Blake was born. How have you been able to step back so quickly?

I stayed really fit. I’ve always been going to the gym and all that. So I did that all through my pregnancy and kept riding. The last few weeks of my pregnancy I took easy, but I still was doing a ton of walking and a ton of stuff on the ground. The week before she was born, all the horses were moving from Pennsylvania to Florida, so we were doing stuff in the barn. I stayed super active, that’s the biggest thing.

I started riding week after she was born, and then I went straight, a hundred percent back into it. But I feel like I’m cheating a little bit: When I have big jump days at home, I get everyone to warm my horses up first, and then I just do the jumping bit. And then dressage days, I get my team to help trot horses first and warm them up for me. So I’m not riding for the straight 12 hours like I normally could; I might be doing eight hours instead.

Perhaps the most important question, has Blake met Blake?

Of course! The first day I arrived to Ocala, that’s the first thing we went and did, was visit horse Blake.

Is your daughter traveling to shows with you?

She’s coming to every show. I’ve always had a camper, so it’s easy. It’s just home away from home.

She loves sleeping when the camper’s driving, then as soon as the camper’s stopped moving, she is awake. She’s a camper baby. She really likes the noise. It’s pretty funny.

You’re right back on the road to Carolina International (North Carolina) this week.

We’ll go every single weekend through June, if I make the European tour. We’ll see; I just have to prove to the team at the moment that I’m still on form with my horses after the baby. It is a big ask, like with my owners it’s a big ask to keep investing into someone with something so life-changing. So hopefully I can just keep working hard and be proving that I can still do this even with the baby.

Are there any other big goals for this year?

I’m really hoping to do European tour, because they’re targeting Bicton (England) and Luhmühlen (Germany), so I was hoping to take a few horses to those. And then if I make that, I’ll bring horse Blake over as well, and then do CHIO Aachen (Germany) with him. So those would be my big targets for the spring.

I just love being a part of Nations Cups. I think it’s so important for our country to keep supporting these Nations Cups and this European tour. That’s how I got my team experience, and that made the transition to ride at the Pan Ams and the Olympics so much easier than if I never did a Nations Cup. So the best way forward for my horses, and for me, is to keep practicing at those and being competitive on the world stage, so that when [the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics] comes around, hopefully we’ve checked all of our boxes.