SPRUCE GOOSED

Spruce Meadows founders Ron and Marge Southern are outraged.

They have every right to be so.

And the people of Calgary should be outraged, too.

The Masters -- set for Sept. 5-9 at Spruce Meadows -- is the most
prestigious show-jumping event in the world.

It's where perfection and excellence count for everything.

Honour, too, one would think.

Yet, incredibly, disgraced competitor Eric Lamaze has been shortlisted by
Jump Canada for the Canadian team at the Masters.

Lamaze is an unrepentant cocaine user who has tested positive twice for
using the drug. He tested positive before the 1996 Olympics, and then again
before the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

That's even though he had vowed to turn his life around after humiliating
his team four years prior.

Banned for life from show jumping, his lawyer managed to get him reinstated
on what many consider a technicality.

Ron and Marg and are decent, generous people, with high standards.

They don't want Lamaze hypocritically seeking hero status at Spruce Meadows.

They believe, rightly, that sports personalities should be role models in
their callings, especially to younger people.

Lamaze has already demonstrated he can break the rules and get away with
it. He is no role model for anyone.

Yet, if Lamaze is selected for the Canadian team, the Southerns can't
refuse to let him perform.

If they did, the event would be cancelled, and the Canadian Equestrian
Federation would likely strip Spruce Meadows of its accreditation.

That would be the end of professional show jumping in Calgary, and likely
the end of Spruce Meadows.

Everything the Southerns -- and others -- have worked for over the past 26
years would be finished.

We say it is not the Southerns who should be penalized.

It's Lamaze.

Jump Canada and the equestrian federation should ensure Lamaze is not on
the Canadian team for the Masters.

If not, they will open themselves up to mockery and ridicule.