Three distinguished veterinary students seeking careers in equine medicine have been awarded Coyote Rock Ranch Veterinary Scholarships totaling $300,000. The Foundation for the Horse presented these awards on Monday, Dec. 9, during the AAEP’s 65^th Annual Convention, which is currently underway in Denver, Colorado.

Selected from over 70 exceptional third-year student applicants were Gabriel Gonzalez from North Carolina State University (NCSU) and Zoë Williams from Michigan State University, each of whom received $75,000 awards, and Natalie Andrews, also from NCSU, whose $75,000 scholarship was doubled due to her intended career path of equine theriogenology (reproduction).

Andrews’ time working with her now mentor, Scott Bailey, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACT, associate professor of theriogenology at NCSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, has allowed her to experience a unique blend of clinical theriogenology practice and research. This has been instrumental in developing her career goals of working in equine breeding programs in tertiary care private practice. “When those dysmature foals we had been fighting to keep alive made a complete turnaround, everything was validated for me,” says Andrews. “I realized I was where I was meant to be, and the lack of sleep was all worth it.”

Gonzalez, an aspiring equine academic surgeon, participates in the Veterinary Scholars Program at NCSU. In his current research project he’s focuses on small intestine strangulating colic in horses and evaluating intestinal stem cell biomarkers that affected tissues of horses with this form of colic express. His aim is to potentially lay the groundwork for developing a test to objectively determine the viability of ischemic (lacking blood flow) intestine in horses with strangulating colic, and he hopes to improve the prognosis of these surgical patients