Hi everyone,
I’m a reporter working on a story about all this. This world is new to me, so I’d be immensely grateful to talk to anyone who either knows/knew Eric or can speak to the situation. I wouldn’t need to name you in our story, I just want to make sure I gather as much context as possible so that we can report this responsibly.
Could you text me at +1 440-840-9662 if you’re open to speaking?
Thanks so much!
Noah Kirsch
I will look forward to the reporter-researched answer to the question:
Is this a rider who scams,
or a scammer who rides?
This article ran on Monday.
LOL at the first line.
Yes, I wrote that article! But it was more of a straightforward, short piece on the news. I’m hoping to go a bit deeper.
Oh great.
Many people weighing in on this thread, and who are weighing in on social media are equestrians who are also cancer survivors, or have loved ones affected by cancer. It’s incredibly disturbing to think that Eric Lamaze manipulated the general public for years. I’m of the opinion, based on my own experience going through cancer treatment, and my experience riding, and based on what I know about brain cancer, that it is simply impossible that Eric ever was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I think the entire thing was fake. All the news stories I have seen so far are tip toeing around answering THAT question, however. They report about the recent faked documents submitted to the Ontario Coyrt, but they aren’t going back further and reporting on the validity of the original diagnosis.
If you go back to 2020 and watch the interview Lamaze did with Ali Nilforushan, however, it seems that he was lying about medical issues even then. I will link it again for your convenience, and so you can get first hand perspective on Eric. 
I REALLY hope you can fully answer the question as to whether his entire health condition has been misrepresented to the public for years.
Also… what is the truth of him dodging FEI drug testing? It is rumored that happened, and it forced his retirement, but again… the powers that be in charge of the sport allowed Eric to claim it was all due to health and there was a grand and sympathetic farewell tour, and then he was given a premier job as Team Coach of the Canadian Show Jumping Team. People wonder whether or not the Board of Directors of Equestrian Canada knew that Lamaze had been dodging FEI drug tests prior to giving him that job…
Also, you might want to investigate whether or not Lamaze’s longtime professional associations were “in the know” that he was faking his cancer. Many people seem to believe that is the case.
If that’s true, there were a whole bunch of enablers, simply because he can ride and coach well. How quaint.
I liked this part:
Things continued to proceed strangely. Also in July, Lamaze’s lawyers sent a supposed copy of his medical records from the spring, which was written in Dutch by a doctor named Oulad Taib.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Jerome Morse was immediately skeptical. “My client’s daughter’s husband is from the Netherlands,” Morse told The Daily Beast. “He says, ‘This is almost incomprehensible.’”
Dang! I hate it when the Universal Translator goes on the fritz!
The claim that he has an artificial kidney that is controlled by a computer is ridiculous. I don’t know how he expected to get away with that whopping great lie.
He must think that people are incredibly gullible and stupid. Of course people believed the brain cancer story, why wouldn’t they? No one expects that someone would lie about something like that, but the computer controlled kidney story is so far out there that no one would believe it. To lie about something that is so easily disproved is a very weird thing to do.
I suspect he’s quite ignorant on medical issues and didn’t contemplate how many people have real issues with cancer and kidney disease… and even if most people didn’t go to med school, you learn a lot about disease when you get seriously sick. So a good portion of people were suspicious… but as was stated earlier… no one wanted to step out on the ledge and accuse him of faking.
Side note, The last few articles make me suspect that his Canadian attorney knew he was faking. So bad. He deserves professional sanctions if it’s proven.
I brought this up earlier: If his ethics and integrity are so compromised, it makes me wonder how he was around the horses.
Thanks for answering it !
I worked with one of his former grooms. He would pole the snot out of the horses and this poor groom had to patch them up and walk them over to the WEF FEI barn and use all the tricks to pass the jog. And these were already electric careful horses. The way he treated people who worked for him and of course the horses was despicable.
Yep…. I “thought “ I knew about breast cancer until I got it and then I realized how little I knew about cancer! It drives me insane now when people say “why isn’t there a cure!” And then I have to stop and realize they don’t understand Because they’ve never had it! Little did I know how many types of breast cancer there were…. Then all the stages and grades and if it was hormone driven, HER positive or negative etc… it’s mind boggling!
Once you are diagnosed you become medically knowledgeable about cancer more than you ever dreamed! EL does not seem to have that same knowledge the majority of people have that have been diagnosed…. Honestly, he talks like someone that’s not had cancer and knows just enough to bamboozle the general public!
I’ve been reading everything (I think) and I didn’t come to this conclusion.
But I may have missed something. Would you mind sharing the indications that his lawyer “knew he was faking:”.?
He has removed himself as attorney because he knows now, or at least is not sure, whether Eric has been lying or not.
Don’t forget he has been his lawyer and friend for decades.
I don’t know about you, but I think many of us believe our friends, and it is a difficult moment to realize that they have been lying and cheating not just others, but us, for years.
Ask me how I know. 
@NewYorkReporter … I wasn’t able to read the article because I ‘don’t have an account’.
But I did see the headline and thought I’d mention that “horse trial” is actually a term in the horse world for a particular type of competition.
I realize that only a small percentage of the readership will be familiar with the horsey version of the term ‘horse trial’. But probably they will all read any article about EL. If it matters.
It was only because I already knew something about the subject of the article that I realized what the headline meant. After doing a double-take (EL doesn’t ride in horse trials) and squinting for a few seconds. 
If you have the headline space to word it as “horse-related court trials”, everyone who has ever owned a horse will read it in fascination. 
First off, much respect to you for being a survivor and continuing to ride and jump competitively. That’s awesome. People don’t realize how intensive some of the breast cancer reconstruction can be, not to mention how challenging multi year hormone therapy can be (I did it for 7.5 years… it was challenging). Reconstruction can impact major muscle groups in your core and make balancing and posture in the saddle much more challenging. Hormone therapy made me feel fatigued and weak all the time. Plus, I’ve got lymphedema and nerve damage on top of it all… but… I’m still jumping at a low level, and really enjoying my horses, and every time I do a jump school feels like a joyful personal victory in many ways.
And thanks for totally understanding what I am saying… EL’s vagueness regarding medical details is highly suspicious to me. Life threatening medical diagnoses of any number of diseases including cancer or serious kidney disease almost always means that the patient gets very educated on these details, and learns about the details of their personal treatment plan and prognosis. It’s hard to even discuss it with anyone without lapsing into specifics of what type of cancer you have, what type of chemo regimen you did, what type of ongoing medication you might take to mitigate symptoms, etc. And if he really was competing while in active treatment, he probably would have needed TUE’s for all sorts of supportive therapies including steroids, anti nausea medications, sleep support meds, and other treatments to support his blood counts (neulasta or neurogenic) etc. If he didn’t have any TUE’s on file for any number of supportive meds with the FEI over the last few years, I seriously doubt he ever was on any chemo regimen.
Oh man, sounds like you have experienced a personal violation of trust by someone close to you. I’m sorry - that stinks.
The reason I have doubts about the lawyer is a report in Outkick that ran yesterday on this whole story. Yeah… even Outkick has picked it up! I guess it makes sense though since they are sports focused. I’ll link to the report, and then copy and paste the specific passages that make me wonder if the lawyer doesn’t know quite a bit more than he is admitting… it’s just the impression I got from the details they shared. Also, apparently the lawyer told the court that he received the images via Instagram… I find that really strange. One would think the lawyer would communicate with his own client via private e-mail and double check all documentation that they planned on submitting in court.
“Avoiding Court Dates Is Nothing New For Eric Lamaze, Apparently
The plaintiff’s attorneys alleged that Lamaze made similar claims just four years prior and therefore didn’t believe his end-stage cancer claims this time around. The court did some digging into his medical documents and found them to be fake.
Timothy Danson, Lamaze’s attorney, told the court via July’s filings that his client had been battling brain cancer “for a number of years” and that it had now spread to his throat. An affidavit was also filed which featured three photographs that showed Lamaze’s “disfigured face after surgery.” When the plaintiff’s attorneys asked to see the images, Danson objected while claiming it was “unseemly” before requesting the pictures be struck from the record. The court declined, and the red flag was officially raised.
Lamaze’s lawyers also sent a copy of his medical records in July that was written in Dutch by a doctor named Oulad Taib. The plaintiff’s attorney soon found that the doctor’s name was listed differently on his website and in his own biography stated that he speaks English, Arabic, and French, but not Dutch.
A private detective hired by the plaintiffs was able to get Dr. Taib to confirm that the signature on his purported report is not his and that he does not speak the Dutch language,” the justice recalled. Another document from a separate doctor was also found by the investigator to be phony, according to Horse Sport.
Lamaze also happened to be on record with the Toronto Star conceding dishonesty. He admitted the documents were “a little mistake” and that he was “deceitful” to “protect some doctors and protect this and that.”
Perhaps the real tipping point of Lamaze’s dishonesty goes back to his similar stunt in 2019.
According to one of the plaintiff’s lawyers, Lamaze claimed to be on “his deathbed for brain cancer” while avoiding a deposition. The court recounted that he was involved in three separate equestrian events in Florida around the time of the deposition.
Lamaze is now required to pay the plaintiffs around $30,000 in costs. If he does not pay the costs then the plaintiff’s claims will be made valid.
Danson explained to The Daily Beast that he doesn’t see a reality in which Lamaze forks over the $30,000.
“You’ll knock me over with a feather if he pays the money and shows up to defend the case,” Danson said.“
Any chance you could pass along my contact info to this groom?
Tim Danson is an experienced, well known, high profile lawyer.
I truly hope and believe (until there is evidence to the contrary) that he was not complicit or a dupe in Lamaze’s lies.
He had every right, and probably duty, to get off the record when he learned of his client’s deceit. But what shakes me is his comment that “Lamaze is a very sick man, though probably not with cancer” or something to that effect. Whatever happened between lawyer and client, issuing a public statement that casts doubt on his (former) client’s truthfulness may be a breach of professional conduct rules.
That’s a really weird thing for his ex-lawyer to say. It sounds like he’s admitting that EL’s default strategy is to not show up. Which means he was was, willingly or not, aiding those efforts.
More than that, lawyers are bound to protect confidentiality of their clients’ information even after they no longer represent them. He should not be giving his opinions to the media on these things even if he felt deceived by his former client.
I’m curious. Is it common practice for client’s to obtain medical documentation from their doctors for use in legal proceedings? I would think that’s something that the lawyer would deal with directly with the doctors, with authorization from the client, no?
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