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Ian Millar is showing no signs of slowing down.
Neither are his horses.
Hauling in more than $6,000 for taking top spot aboard In Style on opening day in the ATB Financial Cup, Millar -- better known as Captain Canada in these parts -- claimed first place and another $10,000 in the ATCO Midstream Winning Round at the Spruce Meadows National last night riding Redefin.
The 11-year-old Dutch warmblood gelding didn't seem to want to stop jumping even during the victory lap.
"There's a strap on the back of that championship cooler that is supposed to go under the tail, and just holds it in place. He, for some reason, don't like it," the 62-year-old Millar said with a laugh about the banner draped over the winning horse for the parade.
"When we put it on, we leave it on top of the tail, but then he swishes his tail around, he gets it under his tail -- and then hang on.
"It's like the Stampede, you know. I might slide over there in a few weeks and see if I can make some money riding those broncs. Not the bulls. Bulls are bad. And not bareback, either. I like a saddle."
He had no trouble hanging on for fault-free rides in both the opening round and final eight. Only second-place finisher Eddie Macken could claim the other double-clean despite seven perfect runs in the first round.
"I was fortunate to be (double clean)," said Millar, who saw a couple of rails wobble. "The second-last jump, I hit it quite hard."
In the end, less than two tenths of a second separated the Perth, Ont., product from the Irishman who now calls Langley, B.C., home.
"It just turned out very difficult to jump it twice clean. You wouldn't have expected it. You would have thought when you saw that, it would be a fast jump off," Millar said.
"I wasn't slow, but I wasn't crazy fast either. It was just darn hard to jump."
Millar knew he'd have to be both clean and quicker than the 59-year-old Macken, who earned $8,000.
"I was warming up when Eddie went, and my daughter -- she was my eyes -- she said, 'Well, he wasn't crazy fast,' " said Millar. "I said, 'Are you sure?' Because he's so efficient. He just gets it done. I could have just as easily not beat him.
"I didn't beat him by much."
Taking third place and $6,000 was Rodrigo Pessoa aboard Cazino.
Pessoa is back at the Meadows after a three-year absence during which he was waiting for quality mounts to ride.
He had two -- Cazino and Champ 163 -- in the round of eight yesterday and added another $2,000 to his total for seventh spot on Champ.
But Rufus is still his No. 1 -- and the Olympic doping incident that saw Pessoa suspended 135 days after his Dutch warmblood gelding tested positive for a banned substance at the Beijing Olympics is behind them.
He'll ride Rufus in today's CN Reliability Grand Prix.
"Absolutely cleared. That is a dark page, and we managed to put it behind us and go now for new goals," said the Brazilian, who said after the Games he was unsure how it happened.
"It was a contamination, but unfortunately very difficult to prove. We proved everything as much as we could, but it was not enough. The rules are not very clear, there's a lot of grey areas, and that's not good.
"We're in the process of changing all of this, and it will be better for the future."
In the evening's final event, American Beezie Madden got her first taste of victory this week at Spruce Meadows with a double-clean win atop Exclusive in the RBC Capital Markets Winning Round.
Imported from Holland in November, the eight-year-old International Ring rookie Exclusive fared very well.
"I'm happy she did well, because you never know how they'll react in this ring," said Madden. "Everywhere we've been, she's been really brave the first time in. Granted, this is a lot more grand than anywhere she's been so far, but I really didn't have any reason to believe she wasn't going to walk right in and do what she normally does."
STEVE.MACFARLANE@SUNMEDIA.CA