Horse Show Times March 1993
By Roxanne Rustand
She was taking dressage lessons in Europe in the 1940's, when few American horsemen knew what dressage was, but she will teach your inexperienced child to ride. She's been featured on the cover of Horse Illustrated magazine and in Sports Illustrated for her equine expertise and accomplishments, yet since 1959 she has devoted a great deal of time to the young members of the Rapid Creek Pony Club, which is based at her farm. She is the riding instructor to whom other instructors go when needing a tune up of technique or form. Her name is Betsy Coester. She lives just north of Iowa City.
Betsy was only three weeks old when she first sat on a horse and hasn't been far from a horse since. She grew up in Maryland's ElkridgeHartford hunt country, riding hunters both in the field and in the show ring. Her successes at that time included Madison Square Garden, and she won the Maryland Lightweight Hunter Championship for four straight years in the late 1940's. Betsy has loved hunting all her life, owned the first pack of foxhounds in the state of Iowa, and still rides with the Moingona Hunt when time permits.
In 1949, she went to France and began her study of dressage with the top instructor from Saumur. This stable is the home of the famous Cadre Noir, the French equivalent of the Spanish Riding School. While in Europe, Betsy also advanced her training with renown horsemen Wladimar Seunig and Major Michael Antonieweiz, who were central influences on Betsy's riding career.
After returning to the United States she continued her studies with Seunig and Antonieweiz, who were now in this country, and also with Richard Watjen, the U.S. Olympic Team's first dressage coach. She developed a life-long interest in eventing, which involves both jumping and dressage, and successfully competed in these events at major shows throughout the United States.
Betsy competed successfully in the three day eventing trials for the Olympics in 1961 and 1962. Unfortunately, women were not allowed on the Olympic team until Lana Dupont finally broke that barrier in 1964. Betsy
may not have been permitted to join the team, but horses she trained and showed were part of the Olympic preparations. Her horses were borrowed for Olympic training by Bruce Davison, three-time World Champion and five-time Olympic team member, and by Jimmy Wofferd, who was on the Olympic team for three years. In 1952, her accomplishments were featured in the prestigious German publication Sankt George, an annual almanac of world-wide top equestrians.
Betsy undoubtedly had the talent to make the grade, however, for she competed successful1y at the Prix St. Georges level and trained horses through Grand Prix level dressage. Wladimar Seunig evaluated her in 1965 as having one of the five best seats in North America, and she was strongly encouraged to return to the USET Training Center at Gladstone for the next Olympic Trials. "The recognition was gratifying," she says, "but the timing was no longer favorable for such an adventure."
She had come to the University of Iowa to finish a college degree that had been in the works for some time, with previous credits from France, England, and the United States. While on a University-sponsored mountaineering hike she met her future husband Fritz Coester, a Professor of Theoretical Nuclear Physics, and she was now the mother of four young children, with two yet to come. "Needless to say, to leave a husband and children to take off for Gladstone was out of the question," says Betsy.
Her family now took precedence over showing, travel, and Olympic trials, but horses were still her life. The establishment of a riding school at Wind's Reach was a natural extension of this interest, and the success of her children and her students in the show ring attest to her remarkable capability.
Gail Brown has been taking lessons from Betsy for the past 22 years and Gail's daughters Jenny, age 22, and Carrie, age 11, have been taking lessons from Betsy ever since they were old enough to ride. Gail says the quality of instruction she and her daughters receive is worth every minute of the 7 1/2 hour round trip from Mason City. "She knows more about riding than anyone I've ever met," says Gail, "Not only how to classically ride well, but with her background in psychology and teaching she can express herself to students in a multitude of different ways. She can get the point across clearly to anyone. She is superb at matching the horse and rider, which makes all the difference in preventing discouraging experiences, and she doesn't ask more than a rider or horse can do. The result is steady progress and a confidence-building situation." Gail says that she and her daughters stay at Betsy's through weekends and entire weeks at a time, when their schedules permit, in order to concentrate on their riding lessons.
Betsy notes that she uses a variety of well-trained lesson horses that can meet the divergent needs and skill levels of her students. "Each horse has a unique style and personality, and therefore can help teach a student different principles," she says. Students who show are mounted on talented horses competent enough to place in the top six of the desired type of competition. "It is encouraging to the student to know that, if he rides well enough, the horse under him is fully capable of winning," says Betsy, "Our philosophy is 'Its Wind's Reach where the horses teach.'"
Both Seunig and Antonieweiz, with whom Betsy studied dressage, felt that to ride well in hunt seat and dressage required minimal changes in length of stirrup and the positioning of the hands and shoulders. This belief, that a good rider uses universal skills whether riding hunt seat or dressage, has been a focal point in Betsy's teaching career. Betsy takes that one step farther, saying, "Just because you may ride western and I ride English doesn't mean much . . . the terminology and equipment differ, but the principles of riding and training are the same."
The philosophy of using good horses combined with consummate skill as an instructor have made her farm a popular place. An active roster of Pony Club members has continued from 1959 to the present, and Betsy offers private and group lessons as well. She also has students who stay at the farm for weeks, months, and even a year at a time, coming from such distant places as the Virgin Islands, Maryland, Chicago, New Jersey, the Carolinas, Texas, and Mew York, as well as throughout the Midwest.
Some of her students through the years have simply wanted to learn to ride well, but many of them have gone on to prestigious honors. Linda Zang, one of Betsy's former students, has qualified for the Olympics three Times, and is considered the #1 dressage rider, trainer, and judge in the USA. Last year, a pupil in the Pony Club won the Midwest Dressage Rally and was a member of the winning team at the National Championships in Kentucky. Another student won the Midwest Stadium Jumping Rally, and three others qualified for national teams. Other recent victories, among many throughout the past years, include the high point trophy at the Pony Club Knowdown (an extensive test on horse knowledge) awarded in Chicago to the Rapid Creek team from Wind's Reach.
In addition to sometimes traveling great distances to shows that will challenge her riders, Betsy provides opportunities for travel to top-notch training clinics in other states, and also hosts popular clinics at her farm. Bill Coester and Susan Coester, widely recognized as excellent teachers, have held clinics at Wind's Reach, as have such notable horsemen as Wladimar Seunig, Bruce Davison, and Elizabeth Searle.
Betsy is in demand for her own clinics, and travels on a regular basis to Fairfield, Sioux City, and the Chicago area. She is also the author of the book Horsemastership and has been asked to revise it for re-publication. She plans to do this someday, and says, "I'd like to get some important concepts across. . .there are many subtle movements that are misunderstood; yet they can make a night and day difference in the way a person rides and how well his horse performs."
Betsy is dedicated to teaching people how to ride well and wants them to have a clear understanding of the theory and rationale behind what they learn. "I want to teach them how to express and evaluate everything they do," she says, "it doesn't do any good for me to always have to tell them what they are doing. They have to know for themselves." She works toward this goal with each lesson, and also offers an annual six week series of Advanced Theories Classes designed for older Pony Club members and adults. This year, the classes are running during February and March.
Shelly and Shana Gunderson are twin sisters from Waterloo who have been both active and successful in Pony Club competitions. Shelly, who stays at the farm throughout the summer and works in exchange for lessons, has high praise for her teacher. "She's wonderful," says Shelly, "She's an excellent teacher. She explains everything so well, and understanding the reasons makes it easier to learn. I love her so much! She is fantastic."
Betsy's own children have been shining examples of the rewards that a combination of talent, a good teacher, and a lot of hard work can reap. All six children have won many honors, including numerous USCTA high point awards, and five of them achieved Pony Club "Graduate A's." The youngest, Tom, was close but simply ran out of time before a birthday rendered him ineligible to continue in Pony Club competition. All of her children competed successfully in the USCTA Young Rider Championships, an international competition, and their teams were high point in 1973-1978.
Betsy started a Pony Club unit at Wind's Reach in 1959, with a goal of helping children to learn basic horse care and riding skills. She feels that members gain more than horse knowledge; the experience teaches sportsmanship, discipline, organization of time, good citizenship, and responsibility. She notes that the Pony Club experience was a strong, positive influence on the lives of her own children. In a 1980 article in the USPC News, the official Pony Club magazine, she summarized the benefits by saying, "It's learning to face and work through problems, to relate to Other people, and to smile no matter what."
Wind's Reach lies nestled in a large stand of trees, off a narrow, winding road. Over seventy jumps are scattered throughout the 140 rolling, scenic acres that are home to (at last count) 94 horses. Betsy buys and sells horses, and also has show, school, and outside training horses, breeding stock, and horses there on consignment. If one already has the horse but needs anything else, the farm is still a good place to stop. One can find a wide variety of dressage and hunt saddles and other equipment, miscellaneous supplies, a large stock of used hunt clothing and boots, and even a fine litter of registered Jack Russell Terrier puppies (who are currently looking for new homes.)
Wind's Reach also has stallions available to the public. Standing at stud are the Arab "Canyon Wind Hunter," son of a Legion of Merit stallion who was also the first Arab to perform Grand Prix level dressage, the Thoroughbred stallion "Wind's Fleet," a successful event horse, and the Dutch Warablood "Virtuoso," who is now winning at fourth level dressage.
For all her expertise and success in the horse world, Betsy remains a
warm, approachable woman with a ready smile and ongoing dedication to the
pursuit of excellence in her students. She's a shining example of the wonderful
resources to be found in our part of the country.