Dell Hancock

The breeding community lost a friend and asset last week. Annette Covault died Friday, Dec. 13, from complications of ill health that she had dealt with for several years. As the booking secretary for Claiborne Farm first and then Gainesway Farm over several decades, Covault, known to her familiars as "Netto," provided common sense and good humor to breeders and farm managers working through the prickly process of getting mares booked to stallions in a timely manner. The stallion veterinarian at Gainesway from 2008 to 2019, Rocky Mason, DVM, noted...

The Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation recently issued a special call for research proposals to address vaccines for Equid Alphaherpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) and Equine Herpesvirus Myeloencephalopathy (EHM) and after a thorough review process by the foundation's veterinarian advisory committee, two research proposals were selected for funding. The projects, led by Gisela Soboll Hussey of Michigan State University and Bettina Wagner of Cornell University, aim to develop novel nucleic acid vaccines to protect horses from EHV-1/EHM and EHV-4. Soboll Hussey's project is titled, "Use of nucleic acid vaccines to protect from EHV-1/EHM,"...

Claiborne Farm's Dell Hancock, longtime chairman of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, accepted the Dinny Phipps Award at the Belmont Stakes Charity Celebration Thursday, June 9, at Tavern on the Green in New York. Plans to honor Hancock with the award and details about the nature of the award had been previously announced. "Our families have always shared a common bond and common dedication to the horse, and I think that is what has kept us striving in that same direction toward equine health over all those generations and years," said...

Edited Press Release Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation announced today that Dell Hancock, chairman of the foundation, has been named the fifth recipient of the Dinny Phipps Award. She will be presented with the award at the Belmont Stakes Charity Celebration, which will be held Thursday, June 9. Earle Mack, an active participant in Thoroughbred racing and breeding for more than five decades, created the award in 2017 in memory of Phipps to honor an individual or individuals who have demonstrated dedication to equine health. Previous winners of the Dinny Phipps...

Dr. Gary Lavin, one of the Thoroughbred industry's most respected and accomplished veterinarians, passed away Saturday morning at his home in Louisville, Kentucky after a long battle with cancer, according to his family. He was 83 years old. Lavin is a past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, Steward of The Jockey Club, trustee of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and the Breeders' Cup, director at Keeneland, and vice-chairman of the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation. Lavin was a 1962 graduate of the University...

For the seventh consecutive year, the board of directors of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation has allocated over $1 million in funding for equine research. A total of $1,638,434 in 2021 will fund 12 new projects at 12 universities, 12 continuing projects, and two career development awards worth $20,000 each. The amount represents the most the foundation has ever allocated in a year and brings the foundation's totals since 1983 to more than $30.6 million. These funds have underwritten 396 projects at 45 universities. The foundation is the nation's leading source...

The board of directors of Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation approved expenditure of $1,389,637 to fund 17 new projects at 13 universities, four continuing projects, and the Storm Cat Career Development Award. Since 1983, the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation has distributed over $28.8 million to underwrite 383 projects at 45 universities. One of the projects, to fund sample collection, storage, and cataloging of tissue related to nocardioform placentitis for future submitted research, was accepted because it is directly affecting the 2020 Kentucky foal crop. "All of our projects are important and...