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So far in the US, equine cloning has primarily been used in Arabians (whose registry states that the clone must accompany its original EVERYWHERE) and Quarter Horses--where there is considerable discord over the cloning of a horse named Smart Little Lena. One of the all-time great cutting horses, yes. But he carried (the original has passed away of old age) a recessive genetic disease known by the acronym HERDA. HERDA is a horrible, horrible thing...it affects the collagens that keep the skin working properly, with the result that an affected horse (which does require 2 copies of the gene) scars horribly from even the least scrape or tear. When HERDA horses are first saddled, any wrinkle in their skin becomes a tear; most do not live past the age of 4. If they do they're at high risk of literally having huge areas of their skin just...peel off. I see it over and over lurking on horse forums--"I don't have any ethical objection to breeding to a clone, but I wouldn't use one that carried HERDA!" I guess the moral is: horse people are okay with the concept of cloning but a lot of 'em wish it would only be used on horses that don't carry well-identified lethal disease recessives.
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12-15-2016, 08:21 AM
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