Horse People: Leslie Nelson
Hunter/jumper trainer has a superlative season in the breeding business.

by Kim F. Miller

A hunter/jumper trainer for nearly 25 years, Leslie began her breeding endeavor as a just-for-fun foray with her Thoroughbred mare Holy Cow. A flashy bay with four knee-high socks, the now 18-year-old mare became a Baby and Pre-Green Hunter champion on the A circuit under Leslie’s tutelage. She continued her winning ways with a new owner and eventually found her way back
to Leslie.

(left to right) 24K, Wow and Outstanding.
Photo: Shawn McMillen Photography

It was six or seven years ago that Leslie had the idea of breeding Holy Cow. She chose Fran Steinwedell’s superstar Starman as the sire. “I watched his video and I just had chills,” Leslie recalls of the handsome jumper who earned 1988 Olympic silver with Anne Kursinski at the Seoul Olympics. The pairing of Holy Cow and Starman produced Ooh La La, with whom Leslie had great success in the Pre-Green division. It was the start of something good. Holy Cow had six babies, all but one produced through embryo transfer. Two of Holy Cow’s daughters by Popeye K, the full sisters 24K and Wow, have been key players in putting Leslie’s breeding program on the national map, which is no mean feat for a West Coaster.

Wow, aka “Gracie,” was named Best Young Horse at the Sallie B. Wheeler/USEF National Hunter Breeding Championships on the West Coast and in the International Hunter Futurity West Coast Regional. At the IHF Championships in Kentucky, she was named best 2-year-old this year, a nice follow-up to being the best yearling there in 2007. National titles in the Hunter Breeding divisions are not easy for anybody to earn and West Coasters face the additional challenges of geography. “On the West Coast, you typically have to work twice as hard to be competitive nationally because we don’t offer too many Hunter Breeding classes, compared to the East Coast, where many of their classes are double pointed,” Leslie explains. “You have to make sure you get to the ones we have and that you do well at them.”

West Coast-friendly advances, spearheaded by Tish Quirk and others, have made the task of competing nationally a bit easier, but it remains a daunting challenge. Coping with the logistics of that reality has often fallen to Leslie’s husband Daniel, who has sometimes seen to it that the youngsters can campaign in two shows the same weekend, often at opposite ends of the state.

Despite having the same parents, Wow and 24K “are polar opposites,” Leslie reports. Like all of Holy Cow’s offspring, both 2-year-olds are “extremely athletic,” but Wow can be as wild as her name suggests and “Karat” is a no-fuss kind of girl. “Wow is exactly that,” Leslie says. “That’s how she got her name. “She’s been a challenge every step of the way. If there is some trouble anywhere, she will get into it. And Karat is the easiest baby you could ever work with. She’s our little workhorse.”

As of late October, Wow had a solid lead in the national 2-year-old Hunter Breeding standings. 24K had been hot on her heels until a colic took her off the show circuit toward the end of the season. Another of Leslie’s charges, the yearling Outstanding, by Popeye K and out of Delilah, had a solid lead in the HOTY for that age group. Validating Leslie’s instincts in choosing Spencer Ranch’s Popeye K, the Dutch Warmblood sire is on track for USEF Sire Of The Year honors.

“Sometimes I wake up and ask myself, how did this all happen?” More impressively, Leslie has accomplished all this while raising, with Daniel, a youngster of their own: 3-year old Noah.

Leslie Nelson with her husband, Dan and their son, Noah.

Well-Deserved Success

Now readying to move back to El Capitan Ranch, the stable that’s been her headquarters for most of her career, Leslie was due a little good news after a very difficult period. She had been based at a ranch bought for her by the family of student Talia Klein. The accomplished young rider and her father were killed in a plane crash in 2007. On top of the grief of this loss was the uncertainty of not knowing how the sorting out of the Klein’s estate would affect her stabling situation.

As a trainer, Leslie likes to deliver personalized services and so she insists on keeping that aspect of Sterling Silver Stables small. She is grateful for the help of her longtime friend Paul Bennett, the Northern California trainer who partners up with Leslie at shows. Fifteen to 18 horses has been the norm for the training barn over the years. The breeding bug, however, seems to have bit Leslie hard and she seems less disciplined about the equine headcount she’ll maintain in this side of her business.

“I’m nuts,” she confesses cheerfully. She enjoyed good success with the young stallion, Winter Gold, by the famous hunter sire All The Gold. Leslie has since sold the horse, but still has semen from him available. At presstime, she had her eyes glued on the driveway awaiting the arrival of Gold Tycoon, a 3-year-old Palomino Thoroughbred by Zillionair. “I was looking around for stallions and when I saw this horse’s picture I just freaked out,” Leslie explains. “Three months later I bought him.” At presstime, she was showing the handsome gelding on the Arizona circuit.

“I’ve always specialized in the young horses,” Leslie says of her natural progression to breeding. “To now be breeding them, raising them and getting them into the show ring with this level of national recognition is really exciting for me.”

She laughingly dismisses the question of whether breeding has been a break-even deal financially. “This is a lifestyle you choose because you love it,” she observes. “I’ve met so many phenomenal people and it seems like every day is a learning experience.”

In particular, she credits trainer and handler Ted Feiger and top hunter competitor Diane Yeager as two breeding experts who have been infinitely generous with their knowledge and experience. “I’ve known Ted since I was a child, but this has added a new dynamic to our friendship.”

An award-winning breeder and handler, Ted brought out the best in several of Leslie’s youngsters in competition. Of late, an illness has kept him out of the show ring. Top hunter/jumper trainer Archie Cox stepped into the handling gap for competitions on this coast, and leading pony breeder Richard Taylor took the leadline when Wow campaigned in the West Coast finale and back east. Richard was the leading handler at the IHF Finals and having him handle her horses, in one case on two days’ notice, was another layer of icing on the cake. “He is a real class act!” she says.

Wow, aka “Gracie,” was named Best Young Horse at the
Sallie B. Wheeler/USEF National Hunter Breeding Championships on the
West Coast and in the International Hunter Futurity West Coast Regional.
Photo: Maria Morgan @ CapturedMomentPhoto.com

Leslie plans to breed Wow to Diana Dodge’s Knob Hill next year. She’ll again use embryo transfer, a technique that’s been super successful as administered by Dr. Van Snow and breeding manager Jan Martin at Santa Lucia Farms in Santa Ynez. “They have an unbelievable program,” she says of the reproductive specialists’ staff and band of recipient mares.

The pregnant mares return to Leslie’s care during their pregnancy, then are sent back to Santa Lucia for foaling. Leslie’s show schedule has prevented her from attending the birth of any of her equine babies so far. “We’re showing in Arizona from January through March, so I just wait for Lindsay at Santa Lucia to call and say, ‘You’re not gonna believe this one!’”

As the promises in so many of those first phone calls are fulfilled in regional and national hunter breeding championships, Leslie may need a thesaurus for more superlatives to name her horses and to describe her days.