[ale] Problem with mount

[Jim]

I was having a problem with executing perl scripts, stupid message: 
/usr/bin/perl: bad interpreter: Permission denied

So I recalled having the problem a while back and looked at mount.   
Something is strange here. 

linux:/home/jwl # grep spare /etc/fstab
/dev/hdb4            /spare               auto       
exec,auto,user             0 0
linux:/home/jwl # mount /spare
linux:/home/jwl # mount | grep spare
/dev/hdb4 on /spare type ext3 (rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev)

So what is causing it to be mounted noexec, when I specify exec?

Thanks,
Jim.