Champion's Cloned Foal

Sun Herald

Sunday April 17, 2005

By ROGER HIGHFIELD LONDON

A PROJECT to clone elite show horses reported its first success during the week with a cloned foal of Pieraz, an Arab endurance champion.

Although clones are banned from thoroughbred racing, a French scientist has stored tissue from champion show horse geldings (castrated horses), for the creation of breeding stock.

The birth of Pieraz 2 in Italy marks the first success for this commercial enterprise after almost three years of attempts by scientists in Cremona.

Twink Allen, a professor who heads the equine fertility unit at Newmarket in England, welcomed the news but said it was a pity that, given that Britain pioneered this technique with Dolly the sheep, his efforts to do the same had been blocked by the Home Office.

"It was a British discovery and we are not allowed to use it commercially as ever, the rest of the world cashes in on our scientific discoveries," he said.

Allen, jockey Frankie Dettori's father-in-law, has been keen to clone horses in Britain since the birth of the first cloned horse, Prometea, announced in August 2003 by Cesare Galli, of the Laboratory of Reproductive Technologies, Cremona, who also works with a French company, Cryozootech.

Galli announced the birth of Pieraz-Cryozootech-Stallion, or Pieraz 2 for short, the second horse clone and the first produced for the purpose of creating a breeding animal from a sterile one.

© 2005 Sun Herald

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