Lamaze in top form at Spruce Meadows
Canadian show jumper Eric Lamaze got off to a red-ribbon start at the Spruce Meadows Continental, finishing first in the Husky Energy Cup on Thursday.
The Shomberg, Ont., rider won the event riding Narcotique De Muze II. His Olympic horse, Hickstead, is resting following last weekend’s show-jumping tournament at Spruce Meadows.
Lamaze, 40, and Hickstead opened the Spruce Meadows season with a win in the CN Reliability Grand Prix. They came second in two other events.
The Spruce Meadows Continental is the second in a series of summer show jumping tournaments in Calgary that draw North America’s best jumpers. The five-day tournament wraps up Sunday and features more than $300,000 in prize money.
All of Canada’s show jumping Olympic hopefuls are competing in the Continental this weekend, but most are giving their top horses a break. Pan American gold medallist Jill Henselwood, of Oxford Mills, Ont., is expected to jump her Olympic horse, Special Ed.
The headline event with the biggest purse is Sunday’s CN Performance Grand Prix. Show jumping veteran Ian Millar, of Perth, Ont., is expected to ride Redefin to give his Olympic horse, In Style, a rest.
Henselwood, 45, Millar, 61, and Lamaze are considered locks on the Olympic show jumping team to be announced later this month.
Henselwood and Millar each had third-place finishes last weekend at Spruce Meadows. Millar, a two-time CN International champion and the all-time money leader at Spruce Meadows, will tie a world record with nine Olympic appearances when he is named to the Canadian Olympic show jumping team.
The four-person Canadian team will also include a fifth member as a travelling reserve.
Front-runners for the fourth position on the team are Mac Cone of King City, Ont., and Mario Deslauriers of Bromont, Que.
Deslauriers’ best finish at Spruce Meadows last weekend was second place in the Prairie Mines and Loyalty Ltd. Cup. Cone’s best was sixth at the RBC Capital Markets Cup.
All of Canada’s Olympic hopefuls will jump in competitions today, which include the AtlaGas Cup and the Devon Cup.
Other big competitions this weekend are Saturday’s Conocophillips Canada Cup and the FB Energy Barrage.