http://www.horses.nl/fokkerij/kloon-gemini-xx-gestationeerd-nederland/
A clone of Gem Twist will be stationed in Holland to bring more blood into the horse population.
How can it be that the clone is so much taller than Gem Twist was?
Better nutrition while growing, perhaps?
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Can that cause a difference of about 12 centimetres?
I doubt it was nutrition-- that’s a big difference. I have no idea how tall Gem Twist was supposed to be, or how tall either of the clones actually are-- where did you see that, Elles? It’s certainly possible that GT was never actually measured and any height listed was a guess. My event horse was advertised as 16.1 but I’d be surprised if he measured more than 15.3. Or there could have been a transcription/ translation error at some point? I’m curious now if the two clones are the same height?
That is strange, it was mentioned in that article but now I do not see it anymore. It said the clone is 1.72 metres and Gem Twist was 1.58 metres. I responded to it on the Facebook page of horses.nl:
https://www.facebook.com/horsesnl/?r…0kgvOw05kEIY6v
on sporthorse the ‘original’ Gem Twist is listed with 170cm … and horsetelex doesn’t show a height
the french stallion holder GFE commercialise a GT-clone under the name of Gemini CL for whom a height of 158 is indicated
It looks like he has already had a colt at Keuring last year?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9Q89rXesx8
unless I’ve completely missed another XX stallion named Gemini?
That is one gorgeous horse. Look at the hind legs during his jumping. Just exquisite. His movement is also quite nice, and he’s definitely got an uphill build. One hopes the colt was accepted by the BWP.
If that’s what the clones throw, I can see why WB breeders would be excited.
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There are a few others I was looking through that have videos, some really nice horses.
I would love to have this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-A26QAMhf4
ETA Seems I wasn’t alone, sold at the foal auction for 23k
This guy doesn’t fold his hind legs quite as tightly over the smaller jumps as the first one. I personally like the BWP one–Nibali–better. He seems to float over the jumps.
I checked. Nibali was licensed last year by BWP. He sold for 33K Euros, also last year. He’s got both Heartbreaker and Kannan in his dam.
https://www.hippomundo.com/pedigree/performance/387746
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Any discrepancy in size could also be influenced by the size of the surrogate used for the embryo perhaps.
I went to the 2016 BWP Hengstenkeuring and Nibali definitely had a great presence. I will have to dig around for my photos of him free jumping.
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Realize that in the plant world, every Queen Elizabeth rose is a clone (genetically identical) to the parent plant. Yet how much variation do we see from garden to garden?
With Mammals, a clone must grow inside a surrogate womb and there are definite epigenetic influences that can moderate physical phenotype such as height without having any effect on the genotype within the testes or ovaries of a clone.
The sire of Gem twist, Good Twist was on the smaller side… but Gem twist was a bigger horse than his sire.
At least one of the clones is smaller than Gem Twist was…
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Unless they were very careful in creating the clones, they won’t have the same MtDNA as the originals. That also might affect height.
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Epigenics are a sneaky thing. How much and what kind of food is eaten could turn on/off some genes. Stress can do the same thing.
Very true and a good point.
I doubt that the MtDNA is a match, as they would have had to use a maternal descendant of Gem Twists dam line. It is likely that the MtDNA is quite different.
It would be interesting to find out what horse the enucleated ovum derived from.
(Doesn’t change or affect the sperm being identical to that which could have been produced by the ‘original’ Gem Twist had he not been gelded, since MtDNA doesn’t transfer from the sperm cell that penetrates the egg - in mammals, at least.)
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But can a breeder expect the clone to produce jumpers that maybe can jump as well as Gem Twist could?
no, only the future can tell
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Only as well as they could expect the original to produce.
Gemini’s sperm has the exact DNA that Gem Twist’s would have had.
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