Polo pony cloning is set revolutionise the sport
Original at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/polo-pony-cloning-is-set-revolutionise-the-sport-at-argentinas-palermo-open-a6715646.html
When polo fans converge on Buenos Aires in two weeks’ time for the annual Palermo Open - a luscious high-society affair of fizz, fascinators and shiny trophies - all eyes won’t just be on the most famous player in the world, Adolfo Cambiaso, himself an Argentine. More than ever, they will be on his steeds.
By the time it’s over, as many as 500 horses will have churned the Palermo turf. But each time Mr Cambiaso joins the fray, aficionados will look up at the scoreboards to see if maybe he is astride, say, Cuartetera B01 or Cuartetera B02, or another horse with a serial number attached. If so, they will down their flutes and pay very close attention indeed. These will be copies of horses now retired. Or expired.
A veteran also of the British polo circuit, the dashing Mr Cambiaso, now 40, has become more than a star rider but also the ambassador for the increasingly lucrative - and controversial - practice of polo pony cloning. Indeed, he is a full business partner in Crestview, the largest and oldest of two companies in Argentina now going full pelt to bring clones of past champions to market.
The progress made by Crestview, founded by Texan oilman Alan Meeker in 2009, as well as that of its only rival, Kheiron Laboratories, also in Argentina, promises to transform a sport that already for years has seen breeders short-circuit nature with embryo-transfer techniques, whereby top-performing mares remain in competition even as they are bred; their fertilised embryos brought to term by surrogates.
Cloning, though, is of a different level. Almost daily, scientists in the laboratories of both companies are inserting DNA taken from the skin of a few champion horses of yore and inserting it in living mares’ eggs. It doesn’t always work, but with luck and some help from electric shocks and chemical soaks the DNA takes and the fertilised egg can then be implanted in a waiting surrogate.
“I am very excited and very optimistic about what cloning will do for the sport,” Martin Barrantes, a long-time breeder here and representative of Kheiron told The Independent last week. “It means we will have better horses and thus more spectacular games for players and spectators.”
Nearly anyone directly involved in the cloning industry in Argentina will offer a variation on the theme - that cloning is one more assisted reproduction tool among many to improve the chances of breeding the best possible horses for the sport. “We are not playing God,” another cloning breeder here, who ask that his name be withhold, protested. “I am duplicating, it’s like making a twin. It’s not a horse with two heads or with five legs or a V8 motor inside. We are doing this for sports reasons, for competitiveness.”
When polo fans converge on Buenos Aires in two weeks’ time for the annual Palermo Open - a luscious high-society affair of fizz, fascinators and shiny trophies - all eyes won’t just be on the most famous player in the world, Adolfo Cambiaso, himself an Argentine. More than ever, they will be on his steeds.
By the time it’s over, as many as 500 horses will have churned the Palermo turf. But each time Mr Cambiaso joins the fray, aficionados will look up at the scoreboards to see if maybe he is astride, say, Cuartetera B01 or Cuartetera B02, or another horse with a serial number attached. If so, they will down their flutes and pay very close attention indeed. These will be copies of horses now retired. Or expired.
A veteran also of the British polo circuit, the dashing Mr Cambiaso, now 40, has become more than a star rider but also the ambassador for the increasingly lucrative - and controversial - practice of polo pony cloning. Indeed, he is a full business partner in Crestview, the largest and oldest of two companies in Argentina now going full pelt to bring clones of past champions to market.
The progress made by Crestview, founded by Texan oilman Alan Meeker in 2009, as well as that of its only rival, Kheiron Laboratories, also in Argentina, promises to transform a sport that already for years has seen breeders short-circuit nature with embryo-transfer techniques, whereby top-performing mares remain in competition even as they are bred; their fertilised embryos brought to term by surrogates.
Cloning, though, is of a different level. Almost daily, scientists in the laboratories of both companies are inserting DNA taken from the skin of a few champion horses of yore and inserting it in living mares’ eggs. It doesn’t always work, but with luck and some help from electric shocks and chemical soaks the DNA takes and the fertilised egg can then be implanted in a waiting surrogate.
“I am very excited and very optimistic about what cloning will do for the sport,” Martin Barrantes, a long-time breeder here and representative of Kheiron told The Independent last week. “It means we will have better horses and thus more spectacular games for players and spectators.”
Nearly anyone directly involved in the cloning industry in Argentina will offer a variation on the theme - that cloning is one more assisted reproduction tool among many to improve the chances of breeding the best possible horses for the sport. “We are not playing God,” another cloning breeder here, who ask that his name be withhold, protested. “I am duplicating, it’s like making a twin. It’s not a horse with two heads or with five legs or a V8 motor inside. We are doing this for sports reasons, for competitiveness.”