Ole Nielsen, an honors student in thoroughbred breeding, is himself a product of bloodlines.

His grandfather made a living capturing wild horses in Iceland, bringing them to Denmark, domesticating them, and selling them - sort of an early-day Scandinavian pinhooker.

Ole was born in Aalborg, Denmark, and followed the family to Edmonton when he was six. By 13 he was in a riding club and he’s been attached to horses ever since.

After taking commerce at the University of Alberta he migrated west in 1967 to attend the University of B.C. Law School. In first-year law he attended a B.C. yearling sale and bought a likely looking filly by trendy sire Winning Shot. Winning Green did not enhance his sire’s reputation and Ole was soon looking for a partner in his venture.

That turned out to be Marty Chess, whose family owned Chess Bros. Produce in Vancouver. They had met while Ole was playing on the UBC golf team.

When Al Davis decided to get out of the racing business Nielsen and Chess bought four of his horses and the following year they added a fortuitous fifth. For $10,000 they purchased Decidedly D following his two-year-old season and he turned out to be the first of numerous stakes winners for Canmor Farms.

At three he carried Canmor’s gold silks with red hoops to six straight victories, capped by a triumph in the 1972 B.C. Derby. The Canmor name came from the initials of the two partners: Ole Arnskov Nielsen and Martin Raymond Chess.

‘We just juggled the initials around until they made phonetic sense,’ says Nielsen.

Chess relinquished his interest in Canmor in 1978 when he moved to Oregon, but his initials remained behind.

Nielsen, meanwhile, has done just about everything there is to do in racing. He served as president of the B.C. division of the Canadian Horse Society and of the national body; he operated two farms which have been home to numerous stallions; he bought champions, sold champions, and bred a champion; he imported Kentucky yearlings and, like his grandfather, he survived trying times by pinhooking.

For the uninitiated, pinhooking is the art of buying weanlings and yearlings as cheaply as you can, and selling them about a year or so later for as much as you can. It’s a risky game but Nielsen and partners won most of the time.

Canmor didn’t wait long to get back into the B.C. Derby picture following Decidedly D. In 1976 Salad Sam, a $40,000 California claim, finished second to D.B.’s Dream in a four-horse blanket finish which included Crafty Native and Bold Laddie. It may have been the all-time best B.C. Derby.

The following year Bucksaw, haltered for $40,000 at Hollywood Park, made amends by winning the Derby under a sterling ride by Alan Cuthbertson.

The Canmor stakes stars form a constellation: Never Wood, Tense Moment, Sky Borne, Barkerville Belle, Spice Girl, Winmore Miss, Lasting Light, Lasting Code, and Ever Lasting. Everyone a filly.

Ever Lasting is Nielsen’s all-time favorite. ‘She was undefeated in six starts at Hastings. She won the Oaks and the Ballerina and at Emerald she won the Washington Oaks and Belle Roberts. They are the top four races in the Northwest for fillies and mares. Not many have done that. Her Ballerina is my number one race. Strawberry Morn headed her in the stretch but she battled back to win.’

Canmor bought Ever Lasting as a yearling for $49,000, but she didn’t meet her reserve of $80,000 when she was put on the block at Barrett’s two-year-olds in training sale so they brought her home.
Nielsen sold a half-interest in Ever Lasting to Lola McCarthy, which turned out to be the start of a lasting relationship. Of the 21 horses now in training Lola is a partner in six and her daughter Tracy is a partner in seven others.

Tracy, who is married to recently retired jockey Chris Loseth, started training the stable in 2005 after being Canmor’s unofficial stable manager for many years, handling much of the paperwork and inspecting yearlings. ‘Every horse we ever bought was looked at by Tracy,’ says Nielsen.

Nielsen’s second favorite horse is Salad Sam, who won the Longacres Derby before his narrow loss in the B.C. Derby. Third place goes to Sky Borne, a grey B.C. bred who became the dam of last year’s 2-year-old champion Notis Otis.

But they may all be eclipsed by Monashee, the sensational daughter of Wolf Power who rekindled memories of Ever Lasting by winning the Oaks and the Ballerina and becoming B.C.’s 2005 Horse of the Year.

Nielsen bought a farm almost as soon as he started in the business. His first location was on Clearbrook Rd. in Abbotsford, next door to Dr. Fred Spohn’s Clearbrook Stock Farm. Seven years later he moved to the present 110 acres in Aldergrove.

Initial plans were for Canmor to be a stallion station without any resident mares. Ole remembers that in one year 306 mares came to be bred to the seven stallions in residence.

From 1984 until ‘91 he suffered with the rest of the industry, losing money and not having much fun. In 1991 he leased two-thirds of the farm to Crown West Farm and concentrated on pinhooking weanlings and yearlings and racing the ones he didn’t sell.

In 1999 in partnership with Lorne Embree, he moved back into the farm and made it a showplace of the Fraser Valley. Canmor now has five broodmares, all winners of more than $100,00, plus a roster of five stallions.

Nielsen is no longer deeply involved in the CTHS, but there was a time when he was The Man. He served as vice-president under Reg Ellett in the mid-’70s He assumed the presidency in 1978 and led the organization through a progressive period which saw the industry gain tax concessions from the provincial government and establish the Breeders’ Incentive Program. In one month he made 17 trips to Victoria to plead the Breeders’ case.

As national president he helped gain concessions in Section 31 of the Income Tax Act, raising the gentleman’s farm exemption from $7,500 to $15,000.

He also led one of the groups seeking to build a mile track outside Vancouver, but that project and others of similar design never came to be.

Nielsen would have loved a big track but he does not yearn for the big time. He’s a hands-on owner, working closely with Loseth, who breaks the yearlings, with farm manager Phil Hall, and with trainer McCarthy. ‘If I won a race in Toronto and just flew down to have my picture taken in the winner’s circle it wouldn’t mean much to me.’

He has a degree in law and commerce, and is more disposed to the latter. His main focus has been in land development and the last four years have been rewarding ones.

He’s also had some rewarding days in the sales ring. One year he sold nine two-year-olds in California which he had bought as yearlings in Kentucky for an average of $80,000, making a bountiful profit. He also knows the pain of a deal gone bad.

The most expensive yearling he ever bought, a $150,000 yearling colt by Theatrical, had to be put down. ‘He was out of a mare called Costa and we named him Costa Bundle, and he sure did.’

Canmor stopped pinhooking a few years ago to concentrate on racing. Nielsen, whose home team consists of wife Lynn and married sons Brent and Scott, says: ‘We decided just to race and enjoy it.’