By Matthew Kinchla, ABC News Channel 7 ( June 10th 2020) — AMARILLO, Texas (KVII) — There is no question, the bond between human and animal is special. However, humans typically outlive their favorite pet, their best animal worker, or even their best racer. One Texas organization is making it possible through cloning, to keep that relationship going.
Viagen Pets out of Cedar Park has been cloning animals since January 2002. They’re known for cloning horses, livestock, and even pets.
“Science has come a long way since ‘Dolly the Sheep’.”
VIAGEN
“The common bond between all of our clients that are cloning their pets, or horse even, is this unique relationship that they have had with that animal and if you have never had that relationship with a dog or a cat or a horse then you may not understand why you would do this,” Viagen Client Service Manager Melain Rodriguez said. “I know me myself, I have had lots of animals over the years and there is always that one.”
Rodriguez added from the client’s perspective, it’s very easy. All you have to do is take your dog to the vet.
How do you clone a horse? Cells are taken from the donor animal. In the case of a horse, typically from a ear or the chest and implanted in an unfertilised egg, which has had its own DNA removed. An electric pulse causes the two to fuse together and also starts cell division.
HORSE AND HOUND
“It is a very simple biopsy procedure that any veterinarian can do and then those tissue samples will come back to our lab and we will grow and culture millions of cells from these tissues and each of these cells contains the complete DNA for that animal,” Rodriguez said.
Then they can simply freeze the cells and keep them stored for years to come.
One animal that recently was successfully cloned was a famous rodeo calf roping horse named Topper.
“Those cells were preserved years ago when that animal died and so this is an example of an animal that essentially sort of comes back in a new form,” said Rodriguez. “The same DNA from Topper is in this newborn foal. Now, he is going to have to have the same training that the original Topper did but a lot of that performance and drive is genetically linked.”
The cloning process varies upon species. The initial step of preserving the cell line costs $1,600. It costs $150 a year to store the cells, and that number is taken out of the total cost.
The cloning for a horse is $85,000. It costs $50,000 for a dog and $35,000 for a cat. Read more »
Though cloning is allowed within most horse breed registries, it’s banned for racing thoroughbreds and quarter horses. Even so, thoroughbreds and quarter horses are regularly cloned and participate in disciplines such as dressage, polo and rodeo.
The horse is the seventh species to be cloned.
FEATURED IMAGE
Prometea, first cloned horse. © Boehringer Friedrich Information (extracted from IPTC Photo Metadata).
BACKGROUND
The birth of the world’s first cloned horse was announced in 2003. The healthy female Haflinger foal – named Prometea – was born to her genetically identical surrogate mother on 28 May 2003 in Italy. The breakthrough followed the cloning of a mule earlier in 2003. New Scientist »
By chance, the same mare that donated the cells ended up serving as the only surrogate mother out of nine mares who went to term. In effect, the mare gave birth to her identical twin. Chicago Tribune »
Prometea is 11 years old (according to a 2014 article), Clones: Where are they now?” »
RESOURCES
• Cedar Park company ViaGen cloning favorite pets »
• How do you clone a horse?, Horse and Hound »
TUESDAY’S HORSE
• Previous posts on cloned horses »
MORE READING
“Cloned Horses Have Quietly Become a Thing. Should They Be Allowed to Compete?“, ROBB REPORT, by Nina Fedrizzi, Dec. 17, 2019
“Battle of the clones: when will a replica horse win Olympic gold?“, CNN, Feb. 20, 2015 »
“Cloned horses can now compete in the Olympics, SLATE Magazine, by Will Oremus, Jul. 6, 2012
Resources updated Jun. 15, 2020 6:40 pm
Tuesday's Horse 