Page 96 - May 2016

“... owners and trainers are great people. On the track they are competitors, but off the racetrack they are friends and would do anything for each other.”
by John Moorehouse
Leah Nelson grew up as a city girl in Oregon. Everything changed when she met her future husband Dave, a jockey on Oregon’s Quarter
Horse circuit. That turned the city girl into a country girl and Nelson hasn’t looked back.
In addition to breeding, raising and racing Quarter Horses with her husband, Nelson has served as the Executive Director of the Oregon Quarter Horse Racing Association (OQHRA) for the past
25 years. Her combined experience in both roles has given Nelson a near-encyclopedic knowledge of racing in her home state.
Nelson has seen racing in the Beaver State undergo quite a few changes during the past quarter century. Today, the OQHRA oversees the annual meet at Portland Meadows, along with five county fairs that hold races every summer. On Nelson’s watch, the Association also developed a computer program used to track every Quarter Horse race
in Oregon, along with owner’s bonuses, breeder’s awards, and points toward year-end awards.
That’s what occupies Nelson as a professional, but let’s get to know more about her as a person in the latest installment of our “Lighter Side” series.
Q: Where were you born?
A: I was born at Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.
Q: What are your hobbies outside of horse racing?
A: I like tending to my 130 roses in my rose garden, planting pots and baskets each spring, volunteering with Girl Scouts, and volunteering at a local not-for- profit in Salem, Oregon, called “Helping Hands.” Also, being grandma to eight wonderful grandchil- dren and three great-grandchildren. I’m their best “cheerleader”!
Q: What is your favorite movie and why?
A: “The Sound of Music” – I love the music, I like Julie Andrews, and the story.
Q: Give an interesting fact about your family.
A: My great-grandmother, Mary Eva Snyder, mar- ried Albert Pride David, who was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Albert David came across the plains in a covered wagon and oxen team over the Oregon Trail with his father, Capt. Alexander F. David. Captain
David served in the Wisconsin Calvary for six months during the Civil War. After the war, he left Oshkosh in May of 1865 and arrived in the Oregon country
in October. His four oldest sons came with him and settled on a homestead in the Clark County area, west of Camas, Washington. There they built a log cabin. One year later, in June of 1866, his wife Rebecca Gillispie David came west with the four young-
est children. They came by boat around the horn. Rebecca brought nice things from her lovely home in Wisconsin. She was completely disappointed with the rugged life and hardships of the pioneer life, living in the one room cabin hued from logs. Her health failed and she died two years later.
Q: Do you have a nickname and, if so, what is it and how did it come about?
A: In eighth grade, my math teacher liked horse rac- ing and he always called me Hialeah.
Q: What is the strangest personality quirk you have ever seen in a horse?
A: There was a horse back in the 1970s that ran at Portland Meadows and was owned by our very good friends. Lucks O’ Boy was his name. When he was being saddled in the paddock, if he reached down and
LEAH NELSON
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SPEEDHORSE, May 2016
John Moorehouse
THE LIGHTER SIDE