top riders as they struggle to keep the ride on good horses.

He also understands how hard it is to manage an international

competitive career while training and coaching to pay the

bills. Add a young family to that mix, and tough decisions

sometimes have to be made.

“It’s a very difficult sport, as everybody knows,” he says. “You

need a great horse, but even with that you have to be able to

go where those horses need to go. If you have to also make

a living, it’s not easy to do both.”

Terrance stopped competing in 1994, partly to give his family

the time and support they deserved. His daughter Jessica is

now 30; her younger sister Hilary recently graduated from the

London School of Economics in Great Britain and continues to

live in London.

By the time Terrance hung up his red team coat he had

competed on 23 Nations’ Cup teams. Turning his attention fully

to training and coaching, he was lucky enough to work with

several riders who represented Canada at the Olympic Games,

including Beth Underhill, Lisa Carlsen and Chris Delia.

“I enjoyed a lot of aspects of training, but one thing I found

especially satisfying was to have clients who approached the

sport with the attitude that whether their horse was the best

horse wasn’t as important as trying to make that horse the

best horse it could be,” he says.

Terrance takes his responsibilities as chef d’equipe very

seriously, though he says the enjoyment he derives from

watching horses and riders excel makes it easy to put in the

necessary time at competitions.

“One of the primary requirements for having credibility as a

chef d’equipe is to be around a lot and to understand what is

going on with the horses and riders,” he says. “You can’t just

read the results. One eight fault round can be quite different

to another.”

The ultimate reward for his dedication came at the 2008

Olympics in Hong Kong.

“That was a ‘dream’ Olympics,” he says. “When you jump-off

for the team gold medal and your rider wins individual gold, it

can’t get much better than that.”

Another highlight of Terrance’s time as chef d’equipe was at

Spruce Meadows in 2006, when Canada won the Nations’

Cup there for the first time. “I’m proud that we finally broke

the jinx,” he says.

Of course, being a Chef d’Equipe does come with its

challenges. Terrance says, “I’m extremely aware of the

challenges riders face in getting the horses and financing it all.

They have to bring a lot of passion to it to reach and stay on

that level. Over a period of time it’s inevitable that you have to

tell riders something they’d rather not hear, or make a decision

that they would rather went the other way.”

Terrance believes that as long as the athletes know that

the decision is an honest one made in the best interest of

the sport, they may disagree but, at the end of the day, the

relationship will survive.

When Terrance first took on his role as chef d’equipe, it was

during a time of great change in Canadian Show Jumping.

“It was a bit of a new era,” he says. “Jump Canada had just

been set up and we had a new system.”

A member of the Jump Canada Board since it came into

existence, Terrance is proud of the organization’s successful

evolution. Jump Canada’s High Performance model is

structured so that a five member selection committee chooses

teams for the Olympics, World Championships and Pan

American Games, while naming teams for normal Nations’

Cups events falls to the chef d’equipe.

He appreciates the importance of team selection when it

comes to the athletes, saying, “Riders work all their lives for

a moment like that. It’s a decision that no one takes lightly.

I’ve been lucky to have really great people on the High

Performance Committee.”

In addition to his close involvement with Jump Canada,

Terrance served on Equine Canada’s Sport Council for four

years and was an Equine Canada Board member for two years.

The decision to have Mark Laskin come on board as co-chef

d’equipe until after London was a good one, Terrance believes.

“Mark started after the last Olympics, and I’ve enjoyed my

relationship with him,” he says. “It’s worked well. Nowadays,

with the number of events on the calendar, if you don’t have two

people you are probably going to have to pay somebody quite a

lot of money to go to all the events. It takes a lot of time.”

The demands on the chef’s time are even greater than ever,

thanks to the funding from Own the Podium that has made

even more projects and competitive tours possible, which in

turn puts more demands on the chef d’equipe.

When he finally steps away from his duties as chef d’equipe

next year, Terrance will be taking away a lot of happy memories.

“It’s been a good time to be the chef,” he reflects. “We have

some great riders with great horses.”

He believes Canadians take a special pride in competing

in Nations’ Cups, and that patriotic energy has fuelled his

own enthusiasm.

“I think Canadian riders almost universally take tremendous

pride in riding for Canada and for the team. That starts from

the top with Eric and Ian, and it goes all the way down. We

don’t get many chances to ride in Nations’ Cups. When we do

we are very excited and passionate about it. Our riders use

their best horses and they don’t hold back. It’s just great to

be part of that.”

Terrance believes that Canada, a hockey nation with a

relatively small riding base compared to the Western European

countries and the United States, has always “punched way

above its weight” in the sport. And how could Canadian show

jumpers not reach such disproportionate success with people

like Terrance Millar in their corner?