62 SIDELINES JANUARY 2012
FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE
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Duplicating Greatness?
Clones and Sport Horse Breeding
By Lauren R. Giannini
Put the best mare to the best stal-
lion and hope for the best sums up
the gamble of breeding. The hopes
and dreams that arise during 11
months of gestation escalate when
that spindly, splay-legged foal enters
the world. To fulfll his or her destiny
as a superstar, that foal needs to be
genetically loaded. The high tech of
reproductive science and genomics
isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but sup-
pose you have a chance to resusci-
tate a great bloodline, one that has
pretty much disappeared: would you
consider cloning?
A number of horsemen have al-
ready answered yes. There are
clones of cutting and reining horses,
jumpers, and pony hunters: Rainbow
Connection, Sapphire (the gelding
owned and ridden to 2003 Pan Am
individual gold by Mark Watring) and
Gem Twist, to name just three. Also,
some people of means have cloned
a beloved equine for personal enjoy-
ment. From the moment these “twins” are born they dis-
play familiar characteristics and behaviors, many without
ever meeting their “original.” Clones are opening doors to
new knowledge about learned and inherited behaviors.
Yet, for all that clones are replicas, they are unique.
Some people are thrilled, others are offended or apprehen-
sive, but one thing is certain: it won’t be long before cloned
sport horses and ponies enter competitive arenas.
The Birth of Equine Cloning
For hundreds of years, horticulture has utilized clon-
ing or asexual propagation, but reproductive cloning, aka
Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) is relatively new.
SCNT celebrated its frst success in July 1996 when the
Finn-Dorset ewe called Dolly was born in Scotland. In
early 2003 scientists in Idaho cloned a mule. Later that
year Cesare Galli, Director of the Laboratory of Reproduc-
tive Technology and his team of colleagues in Cremona,
Italy made history when they created an embryo from the
combination of an empty equine egg with a skin cell from a
donor mare and implanted it. The resulting Hafinger foal,
named Prometea, was the frst successful horse clone:
she was also the frst to be cloned from and then carried by
the genetic donor. DNA testing verifed that the foal was
the exact genetic twin of the donor mare. In 2008, after be-
ing artifcially inseminated by a Hafinger stallion, Prometea
gave birth naturally to a healthy colt.
The frst cloned horse in North America and only the third
in the world, produced by Texas A&M University College
of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences in 2005,
produced fndings that contributed greatly to the success
of equine clones for commercial purposes. Until 2006 all clon-
ing took place as experiments by scientists: that year, however,
ViaGen, with then partner Encore Genetics, produced the frst
commercially cloned foal: Royal Blue Boon Too, the genetic twin
of Royal Blue Boon (1980-2011), registered Quarter Horse and
cutting horse mare with career earnings of more than $380,000.
The Science
The SCNT process begins with a single mature unfertilized egg
whose nucleus has been removed and discarded; it is replaced
by an adult somatic cell from the donor animal. [A somatic cell,
which contains both sets of genes from the donor’s original sire
and dam, is any body cell, but not an egg or sperm cell.] The
resulting embryos are cultured and monitored for normal cell divi-
sion and growth. When ready, they are transferred to carefully
chosen host mares who, under veterinary supervision, carry the
developing fetuses to term.
The process involves intense trial-and-error. Hundreds of cells
might be cultured to create embryos, yet many won’t make it past
the frst week and those that make it to the transfer stage don’t al-
ways survive in utero. The science of cloning continues to evolve
by leaps and bounds, but the jury is still out. Cloning has its en-
thusiasts but also its neigh-sayers. A cloned gelding, of course, is
born as a colt with full reproductive capabilities and fllies can grow
up to be broodmares, so it is a means to perpetuate bloodlines
that otherwise might be lost.
Clones In Competition
Breeding sport horses boils down to producing equine athletes
with the scope, range, movement, talent and brain for their dis-
Sapphire, the gelding, Mark Watring who loves the jumper and his honest athleticism,
and the clone, Saphir
Photo Courtesy of Mark & Jenny Watring
Continued on page 64