I have been looking at stallions to breed my mare to for eventing (she’s tb x hano). And came across the two stallion clones of cruising, cruising arish and cruising encore… has anyone ever seen or heard of these stallions? Another interesting stallion clone is one from gem twist, Gemini. What has been the general consensus around what clones produce vs their originals?.
There are several threads on both Cruising’s clones as well as Gemini.
There are several other clones of high profile stallions.
People are using these stallions with success, if by success you mean a healthy viable horse, with potential to be a sport horse, and some are, although we are relatively early on this journey.
Some embrace, some freak out, but the governing bodies of sport have accepted the clones themselves in sport after initial reluctance.
As always, it really just depends on your mare, your goals, and the training the foal receives.
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This is a very interesting topic. Following.
I’m not personally familiar with these clones, but Mark Watring has had a couple of beautiful foals by Sapphire’s clone.
Wait - isn’t (wasn’t) Sapphire a mare? I had heard that they cloned her - are you talking about foals out of the clones? She also has ET foals IIRC.
McLain’s Sapphire was a mare. Any foals would be out of her or out of her clones.
I believe Mark has a clone (Saphir) of his gelding, Sapphire, and he has some foals by that clone. Not sure how old they are now. 3 or 4 maybe? I remember reading about it a few years ago.
ETA: the gelding-Sapphire is unrelated to the mare-Sapphire. His breeding was Liostro—Manolita, Roman. He was a very cool horse though. https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/watring-hopes-sapphire-shines-again-pan-am-show-jumping
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Ah, how interesting! (and confusing), thanks for the clarification!
Nice…
Murkas Gem, a clone of Gems Twist is available through www.Stallionai.com He has 26 foals on the ground and is popular with eventers. There is a webinar of their eventing stallions coming up 18June, if you can find it.
The breeding of clones did not really kick off till it was allowed to ride them in FEI events which I believe happened 2012.
Gemini CL is bred a lot in Belgium and the Netherlands right now. The foals come out good looking and the elderly ones seem to jump quite well. In the NL official events are not allowed till September 1 so then his offspring probably pick up results in higher classes cause they are still quite young.
Zangersheide have a couple of clones and to me Air Jordan Alpha Z is the most interesting one. Unlike other clones he also competed himself! And just like Gemini his offspring are still quite young.
Hugo Simon’s ET was cloned and have an offspring on 1.55m level.
I find cloning a little bit out there but if the fit is right I cannot see a problem using a cloned stallion.
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Exactly right… sorry for the confusion. The Saphir foals are beautiful… not surprising as Sapphire (and Saphire) are stunners. I really wanted to use Saphir on my mare a few years ago but needed fresh.
I don’t see a problem with using a cloned stallion, but there are limitations. Epigenetics ensure that the stallion’s genome won’t be expressed in exactly the same way that is was expressed to make him, and the mare counts for over half of the picture. I’m not sure if clones are yet as healthy as the original animal. Time will tell.
I’m not sure what you mean when you say, “and the mare counts for over half of the picture”; which mare and what picture are you talking about? If you are talking about the mare that will be bred to a clone, that is no different than any mare that was ever bred to the original stallion. And if you are talking about the “over half of the picture” being mtDNA, it really is miniscule; most of the genes coding for the proteins that are required for mitochondrial function are encoded in the nuclear DNA. Epigenetics at this point is a huge unknown whether the stallion is a clone or not, so I’m not sure how that makes a difference with a clone. Also, can you provide citations to literature that backs up your concern regarding the health of clones? I honestly have not heard that this is a valid concern since the mainstream media decided that Dolly’s death was due to her being inherently unhealthy simply because she was a clone, which was clearly proved to be untrue. Is there evidence that has come to light since then that clones may have health problems simply because they are clones?
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Mare’s provide half the genes. And, they provide the mtDNA. In some ways, that mtDNA may matter a lot, and it’s important enough that the “best” clones come from mares of the same mare line as the original dam. The mare line is highly tracked and sought after in certain breeds/registries.
But, that mtDNA is only passed through the mares. So while the stallion clone may have the “correct” mtDNA (because his dam was of the same mare line as the original dam), he’s not passing that on, so it only matters in terms of his performance, and has no impact on his offspring, any more than the original stallion impacted his offspring in that way.
It only matters if you’re looking for a performance horse out of a cloned mare.
Clones have been around a long time now, including horses, to know they are just as healthy as the originals. Prometea lived to be at least 15, I don’t know if she’s still alive. I know she had a foal when she was 5 (in 2008) but I don’t know that foal’s status.
I’ve followed the cloning arena for a long time now, and other than the debunked issues with Dolly the sheep, have seen nothing even hinting at actual health problems due to being cloned. I would certain expect, as $$$ as it is, and as relatively few clones as there are, it would be pretty clear by now if they had health issues as a whole.
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As for epigenetics - the original horse’s genes can change at any time during his life as well, so I’m not following why that’s a particular issue with a clone.
But even then, an epigenetic change has to happen in the sperm or egg for that to be passed down, and even THEN, the merging of the 2 set off a “reset” and most, if not all, changes are lost.
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Ask those polo peeps about their clones… If there was an issue in the longevity/health of the cloned horses, they would know…
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There was a fascinating show on polo pony clones in Argentina (?) Wish I could remember, but the facility was stunning…somebody?
Adolfo Cambioso(sp?). He cloned his favorite polo pony and had three clones he was playing with. I believe he already had a polo pony breeding operation in Argentina but partnered with a vet to start cloning ponies. I could see if you were a high goal player it would be to your advantage to have all your mounts similar. That way you could focus on the play and not readjusting to different styles. I read the article a while back but I do not remember the publication. It was very interesting - they were cloning on a larger scale than most.
OK ladyj79 thinks faster than I do.
