By CINDY HOWELL
Just six miles from Iowa City lives a member of the U.S. Olympic Team.
His name is Pedro, and he is a 15 hand 3 inch buckskin gelding, a reserve horse on the Olympic Equestrian Team, which will compete in Mexico this summer.
Pedro is owned and trained by Mrs. Fritz Coester of Winds Reach Farm, Prairie du Chien Road. He is one of 54 horses owned by Mrs. Coester, who instructs women's physical education riding classes.
Not an Olympic lmage
Pedro is a cross between an Arabian and a quarter horse that carried predominantly thoroughbred blood. His rich yellow coat with black markings is shaggy and he does not exactly meet one's image of Olympic material. "He doesn't like people," she joked, "beyond that he's very pleasant."
Pedro Sensitive
She pointed out that Pedro is a sensitive creature, resentful of insensitive handling and suspicious of strangers.
Pedro was seen in New Jersey by a friend of Mrs. Coester, Anita Hazek, one of the first two women to ever receive lessons in the famous Spanish riding School in Vienna.
The horse showed evidence of having been mishandled when young. His training had taken him only through the basics of walk, trot and canter. But his potential was so great that she suggested that Mrs. Coester take him over. That was seven years ago and Pedro's training has not stopped since.
Pedro's ability became known as he competed in most of the one and three-day events on the East Coast, placing in the top three or five in competition numbering 20 to 40 horses.
Accepted for the Team
Major Stephen von Visy, the coach of the three-day Squad, flew to Iowa to try him out. After putting Pedro through his paces, Visy accepted him on the team.
Assuming Pedro and his rider, whoever that may be, go through the final training and conditioning in good shape, they will fly to Mexico with four or five other horse and rider teams on the three-day event squad. Only four of the teams will be used.
Mrs. Coester is very particular about who will ride her horse and may not let Pedro participate if she does not like the style of his rider.
A Complete Test
The three-day event is so strenuous, said Mrs. Coester, that horses are usually allowed to compete in only one every six months. Originated by the military, it is called the complete test of horse and rider.
If Pedro goes to Mexico, his first day's work will be a modified dressage test, where the horses are guided through highly refined schooling movements by the imperceptible aids of the riders.
The roughest part of the three-day will come on the second day with a five-phase endurance test.
Roads and Tracks
Non-stop, the horses will go through a "roads and tracks" course, covering a given distance at a rate of about nine miles an hour, then a steeplechase testing speed over fences for two to two-and-a-half miles, then another roads and tracks, a cross country gallop over fences, and a mile run on the flat to the finish.
On the second day the horses will cover 19 to 22 miles in one hour and forty minutes to two hours.
The third day will begin with an inspection by veterinarians to weed out horses which are not in condition to continue. The last event is a modified jump course.
To prepare him for Mexico, Mrs. Coester works Pedro some 45 minutes a day on his lateral movements, on jumping and cross-country.
She would like to ride her horse in Mexico but does not know if she can get in condition by then. She has not ridden in competition since 1964, because of the births of two babies, bringing the number of her children to six.
Mrs. Coester said her love of horses comes naturally from having been reared close to them in the Maryland hunt country. She does not consider Pedro's position on the Olympic team as a high point in her life with horses. That is in the riding itself, especially the riding of Pedro.
"He's a thrill to ride," she said. "He's light and responsive and capable and has a magnificent jump. The fun of riding is in the rapport between horse and rider."