Sports Illustrated October
23, 1961
(Pat on the Back)
As a girl in Baltimore County, Maryland Betsy Coester spent most of her time with horses, though she never really learned much about the science of training them. Then as a woman married to a nuclear physicist at the University of Iowa, she found her self settled on a 100-acre farm in country where horses are thought of as useful only to pull the plow when the tractor breaks down.
Like a determined bride plucked from the security of a mother's kitchen, Mrs. Coester filled her bookshelves with an equestrian equivalent of Fanny Farmer and went to work learning to train her horses from the printed page. She did so well at the job that today, she has a stable of 42 trained show horses, at least two of which are good enough to compete nationally. But training horses Mrs. Coester modestly insists, can't all be done from books. "You have to ride to be able to understand what it is you're reading.," she warns.