Thursday, April 14, 2005
This didn't take any balls
The birth of the clone of a castrated horse was to be announced in France and Italy by the genetic engineering laboratories Cryozootech of Evry, France, and LTR-CIZ of Cremona, Italy....
The cloned foal will be used exclusively for breeding purposes. He is to transmit his genetic prowess to his offspring, restoring the reproductive capacity of the gelding from which he was cloned.
If we can clone excellent horses, what will that do to the equine sports? I have several predictions.
First, the first time the clone of a champion is introduced into any of these sports -- whether racing or hunter-jumping or dressage -- the hue and cry will shake horse country to the very lofts of their spic and span barns. Believe me, there is going to be all sorts of gnashing of teeth and rending of expensive clothes some day a few years hence when somebody shows up with a clone of Smarty Jones or his less famous equivalent. Eventually, though, the traditionalists will lose and cloned horses will compete.
Second, the value of breeding stallions will decline as cloning becomes accessible and inexpensive. Why pay for a single shot when you can get a guaranteed genetic match? Or, if you are going to pay, your motivation will be to speculate on the genetic improvement that can come from sex, which may become the higher-risk alternative to cloning.
Third, success in the equine sports will depend more profoundly on the training of the horse and rider than on the vagaries of animal genetics, which may diminish the advantage of money at the upper levels of competition (assuming that cloning becomes significantly less expensive that it is today).
Technology is a universal solvent, even in riding.
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