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Appoint Colonel Koester CTBA General Manager Replaces Jackson, Who Recently Took Position With Yolo Farm By KENT COCHRAN Staff Correspondent LOS ANGELES, Calif., June 11.— Col. F. W. "Bill" Koester, TJ. S. A. retired, is the new general manager of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association. The appointment was made by the directors of the association at their regular monthly meeting held at the headquarters on Sunset Boulevard, and Colonel Koester took over his duties yesterday morning. Colonel Koester served as an officer in the cavalry •oyer, a span of 30 years. He was commissioned a lieutant in 1917 and was on active duty until retired in 1947. His assignments took him to the. Philippines, the Mexican _ border and practically every cavalry post in the U. S. For eight years he was on the staff at the Fort Riley, Kans., cavalry school, and he was with the Army Remount Service for ,14 years. Colonel Koester was placed in charge of the Remount for the seven Western states in 1939 and maintained headquarters at San Mateo until 1941. When the Federal ; Government took over the Kellogg Arabian Farm at Pomona he moved his office to that depot and remained there until placed on retirement In 1947 shortly before the Remount was transferred to the Department of Agriculture. It was while he was in charge at the Kellogg Ranch that the colonel conceived the now well-known lip tattoo system of identifying horses. He introduced it into the Remount and cavalry, and a few years later the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau adopted it and undertook the tattooing of about 40,000 thoroughbreds, a task but recently completed. After his official retirement, Colonel Koester was not content to remain idle, and his specialty being the light riding horse, he naturally gravitated to the realm of the thoroughbred. Soon the CTBA requested that he undertake to visit the states breeding farms, advise their owners and managers of ways and means to im- Continued on Page Forty-Nine Appoint Colonel Koester CTBA General Manager ~ Replaces Jackson, Who Recently Took Position With Yolo Farm Continued from Page Twenty-Eight prove their operation, and to inspect the yearlings the farms had nominated for the breeders sales. Colonel Koester, an expert at judging a horse, was to approve or disapprove of the yearlings, as regards their suitability for the sales rings based on physical development, conformation and soundness. The Army man has made the rounds of the hundreds of breeding farms for the last several years and is personally acquainted with and well liked by practically every producer of race horses in" the state. His appointment is certain to be well received. Eventually, Santa Anita Park invited Colonel Koester to accept an official position, and he has served; as a placing judge for the last three seasons. This post he will keep on a stipulation agreed to before he accepted the managership of the CTBA. It is in line with a new policy laid down by the breeders directors: to have the operating head of the association divide his time between the office and* the field, the latter work encompassing such- duties as appearing before the public and representing the breeding industry before governmental agencies. Colonel Koester will replace James G. Jackson, who left the post u month ago and is now manager of the thoroughbred breeding and racing interests of Mr. and Mrs. John de Blois Wack • at their Yolo Stables on Santa Barbaras Hope Ranch.
