Consistent with its mission to improve the welfare of the horse, the American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) Foundation has created an equine research endowment to help fill the growing need for better understanding of and solutions to diseases and maladies that affect horses of all breeds.

The endowment, announced Nov. 18 during the opening session at the AAEP’s 63rd Annual Convention, in San Antonio, Texas, has been seeded with $150,000, more than half of which was committed by the late Michelle LeBlanc, DVM, Dipl. ACT. A renowned theriogenology educator, researcher, and practitioner, LeBlanc pledged a portion of her estate to the Foundation in 2012 as a member of its Legacy Society with the stated intent to fund future equine research.

“The Foundation is embarking on a journey of great potential,” said Richard Mitchell, DVM, MRCVS, Dipl. ACVSMR, chairman of the AAEP Foundation Advisory Council. “From this modest start, there is no limit to how far this initiative can go—no limit to the kinds of important research we can someday invest in.”

Before accepting unsolicited funding requests for research projects, the AAEP Foundation’s immediate goal is to grow the endowment’s corpus through additional gifts so that it will consistently yield sufficient resources to fund research that addresses pertinent needs in the equine industry