DARK HORSE

For years, Eric Lamaze was the world's top-ranked show jumper, living an enviable life filled with fancy cars, international travel and adoring fans-the kind of life a person might do anything to protect. Inside the scandal tearing the equestrian world apart

- RHIANNON RUSSELL

FOR A HANDFUL OF HIGH-FLYING YEARS, Eric Lamaze was the equestrian world's Great One, a horsey-set Gretzky worshipped for his bold riding style and near telepathic connection with his bay stallion, Hickstead. At the age of 40, after a long string of false starts, the Canadian show jumper finally claimed an individual gold and a team silver at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Lamaze was the world's top-ranked show jumper in 2009 and again in 2010 and 2011. (Not to be outdone, Hickstead was named best horse at the World Equestrian Games in 2010.) When Lamaze wasn't competing, he trained young hopefuls who dreamed of becoming the next champion at a barn in Schomberg, north of Toronto, and at his stables in Florida and Belgium.

His headquarters, a four-acre palm tree-studded property, was located in Wellington, Florida, an ultra-wealthy horse hub near West Palm Beach that hosts the three-month-long Winter Equestrian Festival. The compound contained two barns with 16 stalls, an outdoor ring, housing for the staff and a viewing lounge where visitors could gather to watch the riders. It was also the center of Lamaze's horse dealing, which he'd taken up to help pay the bills and fund his increasingly voracious appetite for multimillion-dollar mansions and exotic cars. Over the years, Lamaze bought and sold thousands of horses to investors, fellow competitors and families looking to raise the next podium-topping victor. His Olympic wins burnished his reputation as an authority in the field.