Putting Good Stuff Out of Business
Sites like Fugly Horse of the Day earn their traffic by slaughtering (with words) the fuglier aspects of the species (or should I say those that breed & sell them). If we continue to clone horses, this poor website will be rendered obsolete, which is sad because it makes me laugh.
Unless, of course, some yokel with a sense of humor and some blind luck manages to start cloning something that never should have existed in the first place. Then we are in real trouble.
What We Have Look Forward To
The newest in technology is allowing us to clone all sorts of plants and animals (scary) and this Haflinger mare is the world’s first cloned horse. Her name is Prometea, named after Prometheus who tricked Zeus so he could steal fire from Olympus for mankind.
There are two ways to look at that parallel, they named the mare because she really represents the fire and they are likening themselves to brave Prometheus using trickery to help mankind. In short they are doing a service to the world by cloning animals in order to preserve genetic heritage. The parallel I see is this: they will eventually be punished for those actions, just like Prometheus.
In fact what Prometheus did was inspire humanity with his fire and that opened Pandora’s Box…literally.
Zeus Was Pissed
I did some more research and Zeus doesn’t punish Prometheus alone, he punished the world for this transgression against him. Clever Zeus sent the beguiling Pandora to Prometheus’s brother, who could not resist her and his weakness brought evil and despair into the world. So, where does that leave us?
Yes, It Can Reproduce
Prometea is 5 and is reportedly in good health, healthy enough to conceive after only one insemination (why go natural at this point?) They call this the “Ultimate proof of her normality” which is news that gets the horse racing community out of their seats.
Racehorses are hard to manage unless they are castrated, and castration leaves them unable to stud when they retire. Stud fees are big business and the research to recreate the genetic makeup of champions will continue to receive funding from private sources…even if the government doesn’t support it.
I say that Fugly Horse of the Day illustrates very clearly that a horse with a healthy reproductive system is not necessarily a quality animal
Where The Cloning Goes Down
Frankenhorses are being created over at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technologies in Cremona, Italy by Prof Cesare Galli, (who incidentally has been excommunicated by the Catholic Church for his work with human embryo cells).
Horses aren’t his only “patients” he has cloned cattle and swine, but there can be no comparison to the amount of research dollars available to preserve the purity of racehorse champions.