Canada Comes Out On Top In CN Nations Cup

Ian Millar laughed as he recalled that when he walked up to the in-gate to jump his second round in the $75,000 CN Nations Cup, teammate Eric Lamaze told him he could relax.

“I’d watched the U.S. riders put in clean rounds, and the British and Irish were just jumping great and were ahead,” Lamaze said sheepishly.  “It kind of felt like we were out of it.”

Millar, the anchor of the Canadian team for decades, felt the pressure lift off his shoulders.  But as soon as Chef d’Equipe Torchy Millar spoke to him, things changed.  “He came up just as I was about to go in and said ‘If you go clean and Darragh [Kerins of Ireland] has a rail, we’ll win!’  All of a sudden, it wasn’t such an easy night anymore,” Millar said.

As he has so many times in the past, Millar jumped a clean round—his second of the evening on In Style.  That put all the pressure of the night on Kerins, who must have used up all his Irish luck.  His Night Train toppled a rail off a liverpool vertical, bringing the Irish total to 16 and tying them with Great Britain for second place.