Opening a can of worms...

[austique]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12088086/

[madelyn]

Well at least the AQHA hasn't sunk that low. So you pay $150K for a clone and can't compete in AQHA events?

The Three Chimneys fellow said it best... I'm with him. If it got to be "pure science and pure business" I wouldn't play anymore either.

Cloning also would effectively stop further development of the breeds and probably herald extinction.

[camohn]

At 150K to clone Junior I'm not exactly running out to try myself

[Vindicated]

Yikes
Understand the priciple behind it all-but yikes

[Shammy Davis]

A can of worms is exactly what it is.

[nferro9925]

Wait till Coolmore starts trying to so this.

I agree though, cloned horses should not compete with "real"
horses of their breed - how would they be seperated if they ran
in a race together

Here come Sparky neck and neck with Sparky
and the winner is SPARKY!

[Tonno100]

But doesn't it tempt you to attempt to find out how good champions of the past that never got tested were, eg Eclipse, The Tetrarch etc?

[madelyn]

In a word, no.

They were the champions of their era, against their peers. They deserve to be honored, remembered, and revered as such.

[xfactor fan]

It sure would answer some basic questions about nature vs nurture.

To start, if they are using doner eggs from the host mares, or from other mares, the mtDNA won't match the original.

This would give folks the chance to see what it is that the mtDNA acutally does and which lines are better (for whatever task the horse is being raised to do) This could answer some questions about female families.


Another factor is the X chromosome. The maternal X is what produces the placenta--in general the interface between the mare and the foal. The implanted embryo X is not likely to match either of the X's of the host mare. What effect is this going to have on development? What effect is the mis-match going to have on ultimate performance?



If they match the mtDNA, and the X, then the training/trainers can be evaluated.

In the case mentioned in the article, clones are being created of top end females. Adding more good females to the gene pool is a pretty good thing.

Which really good top producing TB mares would you like to see more of?

Given that the Jockey Club has just decided that roan and gray are the same color, don't think anyone has to worry about this issue in TB's any time soon.

[Nerd]

I think that ethically this is indeed quite a can o worms and that clones should not be allowed into the TB gene pool, but it would be *really neat* to do some experiments here. For example, you could raise clones using slightly different methods and see who ends up faster/stays sound longer/etc, hence figuring out what techniques are actually best. I think the information potentially gained from these experiments is valuable enought that this can of worms should certainly be opened.

[kezeli]

I still have to wonder about long term health issues. The last I heard they still have some bugs to work out and the science is pretty new and unsure, and I work in research, I wouldn't do it because of all the unknowns that still exist and because it really would take a lot of the fun/art out of breeding, IMHO.

[summerhorse]

Considering they don't allow ET and AI I don't think cloning will be an issue in our lifetime. Esp. since they can't be registered. And you could clone Cigar 10X and still never come up with a horse that had both his talent and drive to win. They are all individuals just like twins, triplets, etc. They are alike in some ways, differenti n others. Animals aren't widgets that can be produced on an assembly line and come off all the same. Heck even assembly lines have culls!

[Nerd]

True, but genetically identical horses will have identical or near-identical conformation. You could see what effect that has on performance. I think conformation has a very direct impact on the peak potential performance of a horse, ie how fast and how efficiently could it run if perfectly conditioned and motivated. But what I think separates horses in most races, especially at a higher level, is not that theoretical maximum but how conditioned they are and how mentally motivated and together they are to approach that maximum. If people were given a chance to rigorously (ie, using a sample of conformationally identical horses) evaluate how to correctly condition a horse, both in terms of the physical training but also the mental, I think we would see faster, healthier, and more focused/motivated horses out there without having changed anything about the breed itself.

[StrawberryFelidos]

If people were given a chance to rigorously (ie, using a sample of conformationally identical horses) evaluate how to correctly condition a horse, both in terms of the physical training but also the mental, I think we would see faster, healthier, and more focused/motivated horses

Mmm, here's the thing. I don't think there's any exact "right" way to condition and train all horses any more than there is a "right" way to raise children. Horses are individuals and will need different care depending on their personalities, their bodies, etc. Testing training theories out on a clone strain will only tell us definitive things about that strain of clones, it does not necessarily apply to all other horses or even all other clones.

There are certainly things we can generally agree that you should not do when conditioning horses, but as to the exact thing you should do, trainers should differ as much as parents because horses do not fit exact molds any more than do kids.

[mary syers]

The problem with cloning is telemeres--the none transcribing ends of the DNA. They protect from attack by exoDNAses and determine the number of times a cell can multiply. Muscle, heart, lung, and nerve cells need to multiply many times in development to make a race horse. My guess is you would get a short lived animal with a tendency toward many cancers and poor performance. Mary Syers