Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation Surpasses $1 Million Mark

For the first time in its history, the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation will distribute in excess of $1 million for research grants in 2007.

The foundation’s board of directors recently approved 13 new projects, including three devoted to the study of laminitis, and renewed funding for eight others that are already underway.

The total allocation for research is $1,105,045. The board also issued a special call for herpesvirus research proposals. “We have had as a goal the ability to fund a million dollars of research in a single year,” said Edward L. Bowen, president of the foundation. “With the help of generous donors, we have not only reached, but exceeded that level for 2007.” The 2007 funding brings the foundation’s total since 1983 to more than $14 million, which has underwritten 223 projects at 34 universities.

In addition to laminitis, subjects addressed by the new slate of projects include an improved method of preventing infection in fracture repair, a study to be undertaken by Dr. Dean Richardson at the University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center.

A project at Colorado State University has been designated as recipient of the Elastikon Equine Research Award provided by Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Company. Johnson & Johnson made a grant to the foundation in the name of its elastic tape product Elastikon, and this grant will be applied to the funding of Dr. Chris Kawcak’s project on the shape of the fetlock joint. Dr. Kawcak will work with colleagues at the Animal Health Trust and University of Liverpool in England.

The call for additional herpesvirus research is a continuation of the foundation’s longtime funding of research on that disease, which accounted for numerous equine deaths and quarantines at several locations during 2006. Herpesvirus-related allotments of $50,000 for 2007 and again in 2008 have been authorized by the foundation’s board of directors, chaired by Dell Hancock.
Source news.bloodhorse.com