Canada’s Cyle Larin finds relaxation — and a competitive comparison — at the horse-racing track he grew up at

Three mornings before the greatest substitution in Canadian men’s soccer history was made, Robert Boreland said goodbye to his son, who left dad’s workplace for his own. As Boreland watched his now 31-year-old boy walk toward his car, he turned to a visitor and had quite a prediction. 

“This game is where he really shines, you know? These big games. They never gave him a chance to shine, you know?” Boreland paused for a moment, then with a sly grin offered: “Big game coming up, that’s when he’s at his best.”

“He” is Cyle Christopher Larin, who on Friday afternoon had to wait until the 76th minute before finally getting that opportunity his father craved for him, and on cue two minutes later vaulted himself into the annals of Canadian sports history. It took a while for Larin to get that chance to shine, but was he ever at his best when his best was required.

From there, you’ve probably read Larin’s post-match quotes: 

‘I always prove them wrong’: Canadian World Cup hero Cyle Larin defiant in face of constant criticism

Years of turmoil and the pressure cooker of sport all came out in that historic moment, and sitting in Toronto Stadium, shaking his head with a bemused smile was Boreland, who, of course, had an inkling it was coming. 

Robert and Cyle spent part of the previous Tuesday morning together at the stables at Woodbine Racetrack in northwest Toronto, where Boreland has worked since moving from Jamaica in 1982. Whenever Larin is home — and it isn’t much these days, what with a career that has kept him overseas for most of his adulthood — he is back at the track. The morning after shutting everyone up, Larin was back at Woodbine on Saturday before boarding Team Canada’s charter flight to Vancouver, where they’ll face Qatar on Thursday and Switzerland on June 24.

“I just try to stay relaxed as possible and coming here (to Woodbine) gives me that relaxation that I’ve been around my whole life,” Larin said on his earlier visit Tuesday. 

It’s usually 48 hours before matches that Larin begins his mental routine of fully locking in to the upcoming opponent, reminding himself of tactics, game plans, how and where to attack and perform. 

“For horses, like athletes, I think it’s just (about) the discipline. Even the people who work here every day, they’re here early in the morning and working on the horses,” he said. “It’s the same for us (soccer players). It just teaches you a lot of discipline and hard work and it’s all for one day, a game day and a race day.”

There had never been a bigger game day than Friday. And even when, surprisingly, he was taken out of Canada’s starting eleven for the World Cup opener against Bosnia-Herzegovina, Larin lived up to dad’s belief that he would shine.

The routine has remained quite consistent for Boreland since arriving in Canada 44 years ago: be at the stables before dawn, spend the day feeding and riding and walking and washing horses at Woodbine, then come up for air. 

When his son was old enough, he joined, too. And even as a young lad, Cyle Larin was mesmerized by the size and power of the two-year-old thoroughbreds that his dad helped train. 

“He loved horses, you know?” Boreland said. “He just loved them.”

Boreland doesn’t say much, more a worker and an observer. Cyle is a chip off the old block, especially in childhood. While home was in Brampton, about 30 kilometres away from the track, the softspoken kid grew up, so to speak, around Barn No. 34. From time to time, Robert would mosey on over to a field near the east gates of the property. There would be staff soccer matches. Sometimes, the kids would kick it around, too. 

“Cyle got a ball from up there, and that was it,” Boreland said. 

Larin was hooked. While he played hockey briefly, the ball from up there wouldn’t leave his side.

“He didn’t go nowhere. I used to take him to soccer practice every day in the evening,” said Boreland. “He just loves that soccer thing.”

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That soccer thing has, of course, become his livelihood and on Friday made him a household name across the country. The game has taken him all over the world and offered the kind of riches where he now owns a handful of horses back at Woodbine, his home-away-from-home, where that same Barn No. 34 is full of activity every morning. Not a day goes by that Larin doesn’t phone his father and long-time trainer, Billy Tharrenos, to check-in on what the latest is with Whispering Shadows, Cloud Singer, Northern King and the rest. This isn’t silent ownership. 

“I want to know everything. If they’re injured, if they’re gonna race, how they’re training,” Larin said, standing along the track, watching his dad ride, Good Sin. After a few laps, Cyle walks the horse back, talking through with Robert about how the session went. A few minutes later, father and son are washing Good Sin together.

Staying so present with the horses “keeps him focused on being competitive, because this is all competitive,” said Tharrenos, the veteran trainer with more than 400 wins on his resume. “And it’s a good feeling to be around here, stress-free, in a sport that is so, so competitive around the world. Just like the World Cup.”

Larin already knows what life after soccer may look like. “Hopefully one day when I’m finished playing, I’m doing something in this (industry),” he said. 

If this World Cup continues the way it started for him, it may be quite a while before the early wakeup calls and barn visits are a permanent thing. A two-year contract extension with Southampton is already in his back pocket. The respect those on the national team have for him came out in droves with their comments after Friday’s match. 

As Larin left Woodbine on Tuesday for a training session at Downsview Park, he had this to say: “When it’s time to play, I’m going to perform and do what I have to do.”

One down, and after showing what he showed, who knows how many more to go, for Larin and Canada.