Orange & Bluegrass: The 70-Year Veterinary Connection Between Auburn & Kentucky

As the race concludes and the winners are added to the history books, subtle shades of orange and blue fill the dusty downs of Kentucky.

The reason? For more than 73 years, Auburn’s College of Veterinary Medicine has offered students from the state of Kentucky the option to earn a veterinary degree on the Plains at in-state tuition rates. With no Kentucky school offering a veterinary program of its own, this unique partnership has made an incredible impact on Lexington, the state of Kentucky, and horse racing at large.

This enduring relationship between Auburn, the state of Kentucky, and the Southern Regional Education Board has allowed hundreds of Kentucky residents (including 38 this year) to come to Auburn to earn their veterinary medicine degree.

“This is something we’ve done for so long that it’s almost become part of our identity,” said Calvin Johnson ’86, dean of Auburn’s College of Veterinary Medicine. “Here we are 73 years later, and it’s still in existence. That’s over half the lifetime of our college. It’s never been interrupted. It’s continued to grow in terms of the number of students that are participating.”

More than 125 years old, Auburn’s vet school has enjoyed a reputation as one of the region’s finest. In 1951, Kentucky was considering building its own program, but when they saw the quality of training their students could get—and the low cost of sending them there—they opted instead to create this unique agreement.

“What’s so interesting about it is Kentucky has considered building a veterinary college many times,” said Johnson. “They say it just doesn’t make business sense to ever build your own college because it’s such a good deal.”

Compared to paying out-of-state tuition, Kentucky residents save about $125,000 on their degree. But the benefits are more than just affordability. Research into equine health is common at Auburn, and Auburn’s national champion equestrian team is used to help train students in sports medicine.

“The benefit of having that national championship, SEC champion equestrian team—and all the horses involved in that—is the opportunity for our students to work with our veterinarians to learn how to treat athletic injuries in horses. And that’s highly relevant to the racing industry in Kentucky,” Johnson said. The equestrian team holds the university’s five most recent national championships, including one in 2019.

Where The Orange Bleeds Blue

Multiple vet clinics in Lexington and the surrounding suburbs were founded by or currently employ Auburn graduates caring for some of the world’s top equestrian talent. Southland Veterinary Hospital is operated by three Auburn vet school graduates, while Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington has had numerous Auburn grads on its staff since opening in 1986.

Reid Hanson, professor of equine sports medicine and surgery, has served on the Auburn faculty since 1992 and says while Auburn hasn’t directly contributed to horse racing itself, it has created the veterinarians who have gone on to research and care for the horses that have.

“You have the general practitioner who works in Kentucky and works on racehorses and helps racehorses,” Hanson said. “And then you have those specialists who have gone on and gotten surgery training or are self-trained and have worked in the Kentucky horse industry. Sport horses are coming into play here the last 10 years. Auburn produces not all the veterinarians that work in Kentucky, but Auburn is Kentucky’s designated vet school to train their future veterinarians for the state.”

Alan Dorton ’87 runs his own private practice in Versailles, just outside Lexington, that focuses on horse reproduction and racing. He also cared for 2022 Kentucky Derby winner Rich Strike and four other derby horses throughout his career.

“I most likely would not have been able to get into veterinary school without that agreement, coming from a state that doesn’t have a vet school,” said Dorton. “The year I got in, I had a one-in-five chance of being selected. There were 35 choices and around 150 applicants from Kentucky. It increases the odds of a poor boy from Lexington, Kentucky getting into vet school.”

The chances of a veterinarian having the opportunity to tend to a Kentucky Derby-winning horse is extremely rare—nearly 1 in 18,000, according to Dorton—but that does nothing to dampen the possibilities.

“I don’t think you’re aware of how important a factor of life the Kentucky Derby is up here,” said Dorton. “I’ll see a new foal, and they’ll say, ‘Do you think this one’s a derby winner, doc?’ I mean, it’s huge. It’s like winning the Oscars, the World Series, an NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal all rolled into one.”

Dorton said Auburn is known for producing high-quality veterinarians in the Lexington area, and when football season nears and the AU stickers start to pop up on vehicles around town, it’s a point of pride.

“When you graduated from Auburn, you were ready to go to work,” Dorton said. “[Auburn vets] prided themselves on that, and they still do.”

From Training To The Track

Research from Auburn University continues to improve the safety of horse racing. Former Auburn professor Debrah Taylor spent time in Dubai in 2015 studying thoroughbred racehorses and whether racing them without shoes could improve their overall hoof health.

In 2018, Vet Med successfully conducted the first-ever procedure to correct atrial fibrillation on a thoroughbred jumping horse.

Current Auburn vet student Blake Park grew up on a horse farm outside Lexington and competed in equestrian events from a young age. She knew she wanted to work with horses, and Auburn gave her the experience to do so.

From the large animal student residency available for fourth-year students to working on additional real-life cases, Auburn provides an experience unlike other vet schools.

Blake’s projected 2027 graduation date is coincidentally 30 years after her father, John Park ’97, earned his own veterinary degree at Auburn.

“I actually lived in the trailer park down there that he lived in,” Blake said.” It’s like I want to be just like him in so many ways.”

John founded Park Equine Hospital in Lexington. Staffed with other alumni like DVM Gary Priest ’76, they focus on more than just racehorse and thoroughbred cases but still spend plenty of time operating on them.

“This practice has a good diversity of all those different breeds,” said John. “The clinic’s located two miles from a thoroughbred training track, and probably five miles from another, so within five miles we have two thoroughbred training tracks.”

John is also a member of the alumni advisory council for Vet Med, meeting twice a year with the dean to discuss ideas and recommendations for the college from a veterinarian’s perspective.

A Kentucky native, John said Auburn is known for producing veterinarians that can go to work and start practicing, and he is thankful for the opportunity both he and his daughter have had to attend one of the premier vet schools in the country.

This past summer, Blake returned home to Lexington for a visit with her family, and John was thrilled to see her growth as a student and a future veterinarian.

“It’s been super beneficial to many people, my family included. For me to be able to participate in that and pay in-state tuition, and then for our daughter,” said John. “I think the large animal and small animal teaching hospitals make [Auburn] such a superior school.”

While Kentucky will always be the Bluegrass state, thanks to this one-of-a-kind opportunity, there’s some orange in there too.

By Robert Lee ’14