New privately funded Audette professorship strengthens equine research at University of Florida

Joan Audette of Ocala wants people to remember who her husband was – a magazine publisher with a vision, a caring man and someone who devoted his life and his resources to the horse industry.

To that end, she has established the Fern Audette Professorship in Equine Studies at the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in Gainesville to memorialize him in a meaningful way – through a $300,000 pledge that will help fund a faculty position and will contribute to equine research at the school.

“We moved here in 1979 from Canada when my husband took a job as publisher of the Florida Horse magazine,” she said. “He worked as both publisher and editor of the magazine over the years and turned it from a not-very-viable enterprise to a vehicle that was very beneficial to the industry.”

The Audettes purchased Rainbow Rise farm in Ocala, an 80-acre enterprise, soon after moving to the Ocala area. Two years after Fern died at the age of 64 following a long struggle with illness, Joan Audette continues to live on the farm, though she doesn’t buy and sell horses like she once did due to the time factor involved.

“I just felt very keenly that I wanted Fern’s contributions memorialized,” Audette said.

“The Thoroughbred business is one of very short memories and if you walk through the fields even today, many people would say, ‘Fern who?’ I don’t want him to be forgotten and this gift is a way his contributions can be remembered even if no one knows who he is, and a way his name will make a difference to someone at some point.”

The Audettes were strong supporters of the UF veterinary college and have sent many horses to the college’s Alec P. and Louise H. Courtelis Equine Teaching Hospital over the years.

“I very much applaud the job they do,” Audette said. “Anything we can do to move the college’s work further ahead is a good thing.” She added that she felt the college was a valuable source of information, not just for horse owners but also for their veterinarians.

“I think everyone involved in the horse world in this area needs to realize just what a tremendous resource we have only 30 miles away,” Audette said.