Canadian Olympic Champion Eric Lamaze made a triumphant return to Toronto by winning the first international show jumping competition of this year’s Royal Horse Show on Wednesday, November 6, at the 97th Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, ON.
Lamaze grew up competing at the annual event in his early career. Since relocating his training base to Europe in 2006, he has only returned to The Royal on two occasions with the last one being in 2011.
Competing on his old stomping grounds, Lamaze and his 2016 Rio Olympic individual bronze medal partner, Fine Lady 5, made quick work of the course designed by Michel Vaillancourt to win the $37,000 McKee Family International Challenge. Speed was the name of the game and Lamaze and Fine Lady 5 rocketed to the top of the leaderboard after twisting through the course at break-neck speed and flying through the timers in 47.90 seconds. Fellow Canadian Erynn Ballard of Tottenham, ON, came the closest to Lamaze’s time, stopping the clock in 49.43 seconds riding Judge hof ter Zeedycke for second place. Australia’s Rowan Willis took third with a clear round in 50.47 seconds aboard Calisto 26.