No more murky than breeding to a stallion because of his pedigree, his own performance, or collateral family members who have successful performance careers. Pretty common in horse breeding I’d say.
His head looks soooo much like Gems! Especially that eye!
As far as the lunging goes, Franks lunging of a baby is nothing like what a lot of you are probably thinking. Assuming he is doing it just like every other baby he has worked with, then the lunging probably consists of about 5-10 minutes of an easy trot on a big circle, done in a halter, focusing on voice commands and easy things like walking over a pole. Nothing like a serious longe session with side reins and a 20 meter circle making the horse really work.
[QUOTE=Waterwitch;4238987]
No more murky than breeding to a stallion because of his pedigree, his own performance, or collateral family members who have successful performance careers. Pretty common in horse breeding I’d say.[/QUOTE]
Waterwitch - I don’t agree. We can look at history of offspring with many stallions, those statistics are kept pretty up to date (except here in the USA) - I don’t think anyone can attest to what “cloning” has produced yet - we can track what good old fashioned breeding produces. Maybe the “clones” will be all that and if so, fantastico. But for anyone to predict at this stage? No, I don’t think we can say anything about what the “clones” will be or produce or or … This is an experiment, pure and simple.
Having Gemini perform as well as Gem did is up to his training and upbringing at this point. Life experiences will shape him to some degree, just like they did Gem.
“Whether this will be the bloodline carrier who can pass it on? Or has the Gem Twist talent?”- again, breeding to Gemini IS breeding to Gem IS playing the lottery that the talent can be passed on. You ARE breeding to an unproven (in breeding) stallion. It’s no different than if Gem has stood at stud. Not all great performers pass that on. Not all crappy performers pass that on. Secretariate was a great racehorse. He stunk at producing direct offspring winners. He was GREAT as producing mares who produced winners.
Smart Little Lena’s clones (5? 7?) are starting to get into the ring now, and I think showing some real talent. They may be the first “mass” experiment - not sure. I know the cloned mules raced, and I think did decently well.
[quote=Waterwitch;4238987]No more murky than breeding to a stallion because of his pedigree, his own performance, or collateral family members who have successful performance careers. Pretty common in horse breeding I’d say.
[/quote]
Exactly.
But some number of MOs had to breed to that stallion in order to get horses to the show ring to have those stats available. THEY didn’t have the stallion’s offspring history in the first 3-5 years the stallion stood. That’s the point.
those statistics are kept pretty up to date (except here in the USA) - I don’t think anyone can attest to what “cloning” has produced yet - we can track what good old fashioned breeding produces. Maybe the “clones” will be all that and if so, fantastico. But for anyone to predict at this stage? No, I don’t think we can say anything about what the “clones” will be or produce or or … This is an experiment, pure and simple.
Nobody is predicting anything! But the fact remains that breeding to Gemini is breeding to Gem. He may STINK as a sire. He may excel as a broodmare sire. Nobody would have known with Gem if he’d been a stallion; nobody knows with Gemini. Nobody knows until the kids are old enough to get to the ring.
Why does it seem so difficult for people to understand this IS Gem Twist’s DNA? Whatever Gem had a chance of producing, Gemini has the exact same chance
good lord, there is a lot of assumed science here! “EXACT SAME DNA” - sounds like the ad for the cloners! There is piss poor data YET about exactly what cloning produces - are yee all geneticists? well dang it all, I am a scientist, and I have a “wait and see” attitude about all this. I do know that the company doing the cloning is making a WHOLE lot of dough off of unproven results, but hey, so be it - you want to pay, free enterprise! But please, don’t assume anything till some of the results are in ! We are a science adverse society, that’s for sure -
Well, don’t they take the original horse’s dna and replicate it? Did some DNA change? Get added? Get removed?
I wonder if anyone has addressed the issue of telomere deterioration as a result of age in this clone’s DNA? This little guy has the DNA of whatever age Gem Twist was when the DNA sample was collected (fingers crossed he was a young guy). If his DNA is pre-aged…he can’t be expected to live a full life sadly 
This is the biggest problem there is with cloning. I can’t even fathom what the complications could be in breeding a mare to this clone.
If you can stand the biology stuff…check this out
http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/T/Telomeres.html
[QUOTE=luvmydutch;4239146]
I wonder if anyone has addressed the issue of telomere deterioration as a result of age in this clone’s DNA? This little guy has the DNA of whatever age Gem Twist was when the DNA sample was collected (fingers crossed he was a young guy). If his DNA is pre-aged…he can’t be expected to live a full life sadly This is the biggest problem there is with cloning. I can’t even fathom what the complications could be in breeding a mare to this clone.[/QUOTE]
I agree completely. However, I think his sperm would be fine so no worries there.
I remember listening to a piece on NPR about a couple that cloned their beloved bull elephant late in his life, so his DNA was aged. His clone lived a shockingly short life (like 7 or 8 years - can’t really remember) and eventually died because of his digestive tract mysteriously shutting down - or something along those lines. It was interesting how unlike the original elephant this guy was. He was NASTY and put his owner in the hospital several times. They mentioned during the piece that his behavior, which was so opposite to the original, was like him reminding his owners that he never would be or could be exactly like his predecessor.
It will be VERY interesting to follow Gemini’s life. I hope that he is much more long-lived than the above-mentioned elephant.
The other elephant in the room 
is the MtDNA. Unless Gemini was created using an egg from Gem’s tail female line, he won’t have the same MtDNA. For breeding that wouldn’t matter at all, but it could be huge for performance.
I am a geneticist (though this isn’t my specialty… i do immuno not repro) and the only elephant in the room that I see is the MtDNA… and as stated, that doesn’t “really” matter for Gemini as a breeding stallion insofar as it wouldn’t be passed on to his/Gem’s kids anyway.
As for the teleomere problem, well…The company’s website indicates they take skin biopsies, which makes sense considering skin cells are ‘forever young’ as far as telomere length is concerned. http://www.cryozootech.com/pdfs/bank.pdf
Actually, why don’t ya’ll just re-read this thread? http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=167243
Oh, and the other elephant that may be around is chromosomal remodeling… but you want a poorly understood field - you got it!! Especially in cloned anythings.
[QUOTE=STABLESWOT;4238292]
All TBs should have that conformation![/QUOTE]
Granted, I’d do anything to have a horse like Gem… but I certainly don’t agree with you there.
Gem reached the pinnacle of his sport, but some would argue that he’s actually built more like a warmblood cross than a TB. Great for SJ, but don’t believe that’d play too well in the racing world.
That isn’t exactly accurate.
The only way it wouldn’t be the “exact same DNA” is if a series of random mutations and/or errors in translation/transcription occur-- and that has not been observed to be a common problem, by any stretch of the imagination, in cloned equines over the past decade; particularly in recent years.
You’ve been reading too much early supposition about Dolly the Sheep.
The telomere deterioration factor has mostly been attributed to mammary tissue, from which Dolly was cloned. Most equine clones are brought forth from epithelial tissue, and that process hasn’t demonstrated telomere issues to any statistically significant degree at all.
[QUOTE=sniplover;4239416]
I am a geneticist (though this isn’t my specialty… i do immuno not repro) and the only elephant in the room that I see is the MtDNA… and as stated, that doesn’t “really” matter for Gemini as a breeding stallion insofar as it wouldn’t be passed on to his/Gem’s kids anyway.
As for the teleomere problem, well…The company’s website indicates they take skin biopsies, which makes sense considering skin cells are ‘forever young’ as far as telomere length is concerned. http://www.cryozootech.com/pdfs/bank.pdf
Actually, why don’t ya’ll just re-read this thread? http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=167243[/QUOTE]
So they collect and freeze the whole cell, so they in fact have the mitochondria don’t they? And what is the exact mechanism by which they create a clone from these cells, I imagined it to be a treatment that made the cell revert to a stem cell???
[QUOTE=stoicfish;4239480]
And what is the exact mechanism by which they create a clone from these cells[/QUOTE]
Long story short:
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they take an ovum from a donor mare and empty it out
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then they fill it with the material from a cell of the connective tissue between skin and muscle from the horse intended to be cloned
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then (sometimes) shock it with electricity to stimulate cellular division
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monitor it for the first few days/hours in a lab…
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…and if all the above is successful from that point, they put it in a broodmare, and hope for the best.
So they just exchange the mare’s haploid nuclei with the stallions diploid? Hmm cool. And the cell is already a stem, so what makes a stem a stem? Is there a chemical stimulus in the zygote that is not present in an adult cell?
[QUOTE=stoicfish;4239493]
Is there a chemical stimulus in the zygote that is not present in an adult cell?[/QUOTE]
For that, you’d probably have to ask a professional… can’t help ya there 
[QUOTE=DoubleClick;4239276]
I remember listening to a piece on NPR about a couple that cloned their beloved bull elephant late in his life, so his DNA was aged. His clone lived a shockingly short life (like 7 or 8 years - can’t really remember) and eventually died because of his digestive tract mysteriously shutting down - or something along those lines. It was interesting how unlike the original elephant this guy was. He was NASTY and put his owner in the hospital several times. They mentioned during the piece that his behavior, which was so opposite to the original, was like him reminding his owners that he never would be or could be exactly like his predecessor.
It will be VERY interesting to follow Gemini’s life. I hope that he is much more long-lived than the above-mentioned elephant.[/QUOTE]
To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever cloned an elephant! I would love to see the original source for this info. I couldn’t find anything on the NPR site.
Thanks!
