Clones

LEC

LEC

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It appears that some of the earliest clones are now coming of age. I believe the ET FRH clone is standing in Belgium this year? There are clones of Gem Twist, ET, Top Gun, Calvaro, Chellano Z, Levisto Z, Poetin, Quidam De Revel and Air Jordan.

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2009/03/062.shtml

Would you consider using a clone? Would you want to see the clone perform first before you would consider it or just use it on bloodlines alone?
 
There are enough super stallions around that I can watch compete and visit if I need to. So no I would never use a clone. I prefer to see the evolution of sports horses, one generation to another as nature intended, not have it stuck in one era going round in never ending circles.
 
Its interesting, but clones are very different from their original - in looks and behaviour. Just having the same genes doesn't mean epigenetics doesn't play a huge role in how the cloned individual turns out. Google the first cloned cat - it is interesting. Looks and behaves nothing like its 'mother' - though of course its environment would have been crap.

There are so many additional factors with a clone such as the competing issue that unless the gene pool for a breed becomes tiny or say a certain individual has produced lots of approved stallions/ international competitors with a certain (now deceased) other individual then what is the point. Actually maybe it may be of more importance with some of the rarer mares that produce top class foals time after time regardless of stallion.

Ant wouldn't it be interesting to say clone 10 versions of say Totialis then give a foal each to the top 10 dressage riders in the world and see who comes out top?
 
No need as points already covered. There are enough stallions available already. Who is to say that if its the case of a cloned gelding that he would have performed to the same level as a stallion? Forget whether their conformation was good enough, if they were cut you would not know if they had the same trainability as if they had been an entire.
 
No I wouldnt use a clone as a stallion. You could look at it like this- a handfull of the good racing stallions have full brothers that also stand as stallions at stud. But the brothers are never anything near as good as the 'good brother'. I.e Fairy king has not has the same success on the track or at stud as his full brother saddlers wells. Stud fee for Fariy King was £30k. For Saddlers it was £200k plus.

There could be other reasons to this but as there are quite a few full brothers and examples like this standing at stud, it could well prove that even if something has exactly the same genes as the 'real thing' its not really going to work.
 
My other theory behind using clones of deceased stallions/geldings is that breeding has moved onto the next generation....if we use the likes of ET, Gem Twist, etc are we not TECHNICALLY going back a step in terms of generations??
 
I find it really interesting. I saw something quoted like 57% of clones have problems at birth mostly in problems with limbs. Also that clones are incredibly difficult to achieve and have a high failure rate.

For me I am fascinated by cloned horses as more than any other animal is a very commercial operation and the breeding and performance can be really judged. I am fascinated by whether they will work and at the moment I think its just fad. If the clones fail then I think we will see it all disappear pretty quickly but some serious money has been put into these horses and so they are not going to disappear quickly without a fair crack at the whip.

I am not convinced myself and I am not sure that harking back to the past is the way forwards. Calvaro for instance looks very old fashioned for show jumping.
 
vicijp said:
I would like to see cloning used widely for research purposes. You could test so many theories if you had a stack of horses that were basically the same; feed, training methods, veterinary techniques.
Click to expand...

Well you can't use them for much else........... apart from living breathing sperm banks :confused:

I don't know if I would agree with them being using as guinea pigs too. :(
 
Breeding is all about improving on what is there, as humans we have cocked up many a species by our interference. The idea is that the offspring are an improvement on the parents, so as someone said why go backwards. Also from I have read in the past clones did not have a very long life span has that changed now?

What for the future, cloned humans to provide organs for other humans? Oh, perhaps we already do that! No boundaries when it comes to our species.
 
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