News on the Equine Cloning Front

Jos Mottershead, my favorite equine reproduction specialist has published the following news article about happenings with equine cloning.

Charmayne James’ multiple world-champion gelding “Scamper” cannot of course sire foals himself, but his clone – “Clayton”, foaled in 2006 – has proven fertile, with two mares being bred, embryos flushed, and maintained pregnancies identified in the recipient mares. This exciting new development for North American breeders offers future potential for perpetuation of genetics from stallions that have been gelded – something that Professor W.R. “Twink” Allen has been promoting for over 10 years, with his recommendation being that all prospective quality geldings have semen frozen before they are gelded! The “after the fact” technique of cloning means that Scamper’s genes have now been passed on, and it will be interesting to watch the resulting foals in barrel racing performance in the future.

In a similar piece of news, a clone of “Doc’s Serendipity” was recently twice bred to “High Brow Cat”, with embryos successfully flushed and transferred on both occasions. There will be a number of clones and foals from clones arriving in 2009, 2008 having been a temporary hiatus year for cloning company ViaGen, owing to the need to relocate operations to Canada following closure of the horse slaughterhouses in Texas, causing a lack of availability of the oocytes required for the process. “Next year will be big” was Dr. Gregg  Veneklasen’s comment of the upcoming foaling season. Dr. Veneklasen owns and operates Timber Creek Veterinary Hospital in Canyon, Texas USA, which is heavily involved in the production of equine clones.

In an associated piece of news, it is reported that AQHA are to discuss and review its current no-registration rule regarding clones at their 2009 convention. It has long been our view (Equine-Reproduction.com’s) that registries as a whole – not just AQHA – should be prepared to register clones with the same registration number as the donor animal, plus a suffix (e.g. 123456-a, 123456-b etc.), while at the same time microchipping all the animals involved (donor and clone[s]). Any work involving a recordable performance (competition, breeding etc.) would then require reading of the microchip to confirm identity. This will allow tracking of the clones and their genetic input, which is good from all perspectives of the argument -  whether you agree with cloning or not – as currently, in the case of stallions, there is no way to identify if
a foal sired by a clone could have been sired by the donor animal, or vice-versa, as the DNA of the offspring will match both donor and clone in the parentage verification process.

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Regards to all,

Jos Mottershead
For equine reproduction information and
CE credit short course details visit:

http://www.equine-reproduction.com

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