High Brow Cat’s clone Copy Cat is also taller than the original himself. He WAS cloned with the maternal mitochondrial DNA, so I was curious about how this happened myself, one taller than the other.
I just discovered a couple of interesting things about Gem Twist. His TB registered name was Icey Twist, not Gem Twist.
And his tail female is to a wonderful line of mares that descended from a GB mare named Padua. Colonel Bradley imported two–Vaila and Padula, and they are the female line for such horses as RAN and Relic and Bue Larkspur and his sire, Black Servant. All of the sires from these mares are notable for having passed on “the jump.” And all were VERY good sires.
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That’s such a nice jump!
SOLAR CYGNET (Sailing Light) is out of that same female family.
But Thurio is also interesting: http://new.idshs.com.au/perl/search.pl?op=reverse&index=thurio&gens=5
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Sorry, but Solar Cygnet is of no importance in this context because she is the mother of Saling Light who is the father of Ladykiller (Landgraf, Lord, Lido, etc). She is not in the motherline of Ladykiller …
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I do not really believe that the ability to jump well is attached to the MtDNA. I believe that any horse in a pedigree can transmit that from it’s own parents / ancestors.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4083708/
Elles, I agree with your first statement !
The second one has to be taken with prudence because not all the horses transmit jumping ability …
I meant that if a horse can jump well it could have come from it’s sire, it’s dam or from both. It is not only coming through the dam. But of course like with any trait it is not always transmitted from one generation to the next.
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What I don’t understand is why you (the readers and contributors here, or at least some of you) are so ‘gaga’ over a TB-gelding born in 1979. That’s nearly 40 years ago and the breeding made significant progress in these 40 years. And he’s of a breed which was not, is not and never will be selected on sport (jumping) criteria. And last, even if he was a very good jumper, there is no garanty that he would have been a good stallion. Because not all performers are good stallions (even if they have the necessary body parts).
And that are the reasons for Gem Twist directly … without discussing the ‘clone bit’ of this threat …
Actually the lines from which Gem Twist was bred were selected for jumping ability for generations. He came from purpose bred TBs for show jumping. His whole family on on the sire side was famous for their prowess in show jumping. That’s why the lines never should be been allowed to die, and why the clones may be so important.
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Because if you look at him specifically, and his pedigree in general, you will see that they are of quality, even by today’s standards
And he’s of a breed which was not, is not and never will be selected on sport (jumping) criteria.
Touch of Class. A Fine Romance. Reputed Testamony. Many of Denny Emerson’s horses. Ladykiller. There are quite a few racing TB stallions who are sought for sporthorse sires
And last, even if he was a very good jumper, there is no garanty that he would have been a good stallion. Because not all performers are good stallions (even if they have the necessary body parts).
Except that his entire pedigree has proven to be pretty darn reliable in producing high quality sporthorses. And they were purpose-bred for the very thing you say TBs were not, are not, and never will be selected. TBs used to be THE horse for Eventing, whether they were purpose-bred, or carefully selected OT for their traits, something Denny also talks about often as a lost art and one which he feels needs to be re-devloped.
He’s not exactly some one-off fluke with an unknown, or poor pedigree. His entire pedigree was developed for, and excelled at, jumping.
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As well, if you’d like to peruse some modern TBs at Rolex:
http://www.paulickreport.com/features/ottb-showcase/cosequin-presents-ottb-showcase-2015-rolex-thoroughbreds/
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I’ll also add as I’m generally not a proponent of modern thoroughbreds for sport horse breeding, that if you look at the well known tbs used for sport horse breeding (by Holstein specifically) they look very little like modern tbs. If I wanted to add a full blood, i would be much more inclined to use a Gem Twist clone than most tb stallions available today.
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I don’t agree with you on all this points ! sorry … Evidently with the exception of his ancestors whom you know much better than me.
First even purposed bred TBs are what … purpose bred in 2 / 3 generations ? Is in the mind and the expectation of a WB-breeder a purpose bred TB exactly like a race TB ?
Second, is the aptitude, the performance the only criteria for keeping a male, stallion ? That was / is the French manner, where jumping is the only serious criteria. And look where they are today and what they are doing today …
In Germany, performance and aptitude are among the other criteria, even in HOL where the ‘Körkommission’ (stallion agreement board) can be broader in its evaluation.
Most of the actual TBs used in Europe are and look like modern TBs … but not like sprinters (meaning they don’t have hindquarters or shoulders overdevelopped) !
But would a European breeder use a clone, nowadays (we still don’t have much hindsight what are the consequences of breeding clones) ? Would they ‘pollute’ their purpose bred (over generations) marelines with a stallion on whom they don’t know much ? Who is not a ‘natural’ horse but a laboratory horse ?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I know that I wouldn’t use a clone, wouldn’t use a stallion who has one in his ancestry … that is, I wouldn’t use him in our actual situation … in 20 / 30 years perhaps when there are no (un)known complications …
And last not least, I think, living in Normandy, I have access to most of the French TB-stallions. I can look at them, touch them, I can discuss with the stallion-holders, so why take a risk with a clone ?
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But obdb, we are having this conversation because some breeders literally are using this clone.
you get that that was the whole point of this thread, right?
hence why I posted links to his colt at a keuring. Because a breeder used the clone, then liked the resulting young horse enough to present.
so saying you wouldn’t use him is totally fine, saying no one will use can be easily disproved by the fact there are foals on the ground.
will he be widely used? Unlikely, because full bloods aren’t widely used, either in sport or the breeding shed at the international level.
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I just read in an interview with Rob Ehrens that his horse of the past Koh-I-Noor (By Off Key) would even today be a useful horse. Sometimes some horses of the past would still be useful today. It is also written in de link to the Zangersheide article I just posted under jumping mare lines.
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I don’t know – the few horses I’ve seen (by seen, I mean watched videos from Keurings) I can see why one would use him.
Especially that really nice grey listed above. That’s a very nice horse. I think there could and should be more like that.
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thank you very much !
i’m only asking questions, and I am the first to say that I don’t know the answers to these questions.
What I know is that there are many many Europeans (Germans, Frenchs, Dutch, etc) on this forum and it would be interesting to know what they think.
That I can or cannot use a certain stallion is a statement which doesn’t need an answer …
the initial question was ‘how can a clone be so much taller than the original’ …
that breeders use him, no doubt about it, that they have expectations, no doubt about it ! But only the futur can tell what the quality of his descendance will be …
Purpose bred since the 1930s. With several Olympic and top level show jumpers from several different branches. Both males and females from this sire line were International level show jumpers.
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