Cloning

This is a subject I try to avoid as much as possible, but today I'm going to talk about it. Should be interesting.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/08/nation/la-na-horse-clone8-2010apr08

For the record, I am strongly anti-cloning.

"They smell money," said Carol Harris, 86, the owner of Bo-Bett Farm near Ocala who has bred horses for about 60 years and is an outspoken opponent of cloning champions. "They're looking for a shortcut to a great horse."

Harris, whose American Quarter Horse stallion Rugged Lark won the title of Super Horse twice in the 1980s, said she fears horse owners someday may need patents for their champions instead of registration papers.

She said she doesn't oppose cloning in the name of science and equine health but also doesn't think it should be widespread, sanctioned or embraced by horse organizations, which aim to preserve and protect the breed.

"Breeding is an art," she said. "Cloning is just replication."

Exactly. And a very inexact replication at that. No clone is going to be exactly like the original. NONE. Because the fact is, they might share DNA, but it's not the same horse. Training, environment, and luck all play a major role in a horse's success. For example, if Zenyatta didn't have the training she had do you think she would be the great horse she is today? Maybe. Maybe not.

Cloning proponents say some opposition may be a result of ignorance.

"They're thinking it's growing Frankensteins in a lab, and that's simply not the case," said Karen Batra, spokeswoman for BIO, a 1,200-member organization of biotechnology companies.

Texas A&M University professor Katrin Hinrichs, a veterinarian and lead scientist on the team that in 2005 produced Paris Texas, the first cloned horse in North America, said the process involves live tissue cells taken from under the skin of a prized horse.

A horse owner, Hinrichs defended cloning as a powerful research tool that can help scientists find cures for diseases in horses and other animals by isolating and studying the effects of genetics and environment.

I accept that. I accept cloning and stem cell research as a research tool as long as it's within reason and we're not condoning animal cruelty just because it's being done to a clone. Here we're talking about cloning champions because owners think it's a way to bring their horses back.

No one knows whether Capuchino Forever will mirror the success of the original, a horse who entertained crowds on two continents, sired more than 5,000 offspring at $3,500 per stud and possessed a gait so smooth, Olsen said, "you could sip a glass of wine aboard him and never spill a drop."

But Olsen experiences deja vu with her beloved horse's spitting image.

"The first time I saw him, I cried again," she said of the chestnut foal. "He even gave me two little licks behind my ears. I cried, 'Capuchino, it's you! You're back!' "

Sorry to burst your bubble, but it's NOT HIM. It just looks exactly like him. Different training and experiences and he'd be a completely different animal.