World's First Horse Cloning Opportunity Opens to Public
Horsecloning.com Announces the Cost of Cloning Your Horse - Only One Slot Available, Deadline Is August 15
SAN FRANCISCO, July 26, 2005 -- Cloning your horse will cost you $367,350 plus a patent royalty fee of 15% based on the number of clones produced and their estimated value, according to Peter Kagel, founder and president of http://www.horsecloning.com. Kagel estimates that for your money you could end up with 0 to 16 clones.
The same University of Idaho team, headed by the renowned Gordon Woods, PhD, which successfully cloned 3 mules in 2003, will perform the cloning. (Please see http://www.chennaionline.com/science/mule.asp; also please see http://www.uidaho.edu/cloning.)
"It's a bit of a gamble with a huge potential payoff," stated Kagel. "Because while there are no guarantees, and on the bottom end you could end up with no clones, on the top end it is estimated, due to advances in science and cloning protocols since 2003, that you could end up with 16 clones from the 100 mares that will be impregnated with your horse's DNA. So if the horse you are cloning is worth $100,000 you could end up with a tidy profit of over $1,000,000 or thereabouts. That's a lot more money than your stallion or mare is likely to produce over several breeding seasons, plus you don't know the quality of horse you will get from breeding."
"Horse cloning is the wave of the future," Kagel went on. "People are only going to clone quality horses, the top-of-the-bloodline champions. Eventually cloning will allow today's economically unattainable horse to be purchased by the middle-class horse aficionado.
"There will come a time when the ban on racing cloned horses will be lifted because breeders will realize that they will make a lot more money cloning and racing the clones rather than just breeding non-clones, which, after all, is nothing more than an expensive grand experiment that usually falls flat. One of Dr. Woods' cloned mules will be on the mule racing circuit next year. The genie is working his way out of the bottle.
"The public will not ignore that the inevitable horse races with clones will have faster times than regular horse races. Races between identical clones will be particularly interesting because the outcome will boil down to either the difference between the trainers and/or the jockeys. The breeders and racetrack owners will come to know that the public wants to see the fastest horses regardless of their origin.
"Look at Cigar, who was the horse of the year for both 1995 and 1996, tied Citation's record of 16 consecutive victories and still is the all-time money winner for North America (http://www.tbgreats.com/cigar/bio.html). When he was turned out to stud they found out he was sterile. Steroids could have caused it. An Italian insurance company, which failed to require a simple sterility test, had to pay $25,000,000 to Cigar's owners. Crazy as it seems the insurance company, after taking possession of Cigar, will not allow Cigar's cloning because it is afraid of bad publicity. The hysteria around cloning horses is unfathomable. It is now illegal to clone horses in Great Britain even though the first animal ever cloned, Dolly the sheep, was cloned in Scotland.
"It makes sense to clone Funny Cide who won the 2003 Kentucky Derby and almost won the Triple Crown. He was gelded and what a waste. His clones would be fertile and their offspring most likely would continue his bloodline of incredibly fast competitive horses.
"The evidence is solid that clones appear to be normal, have the ability to bear offspring and live just as long if not longer than regularly bred animals."
(http://www.humancloning.org/telomerase.htm and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/728088.stm)
Citing a quote in a newspaper interview with Dr. Woods, Kagel stated, "The evidence is clear that a by-product of the sciences involved in cloning will help us understand how to defeat diseases like cancer."
(http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,59053,00.html?tw=wn_story_related)
"We only have the capacity this year to clone one horse, and the deadline for putting money down is August 15, so it's 'first come, first served,'" Kagel said. "This is because the sun governs the cloning season, and we're starting late.
"Most importantly, we are not just talking about racehorses for this one-time opportunity - far from it. We are talking about cloning incredible Peruvian Pasos, champion cutting horses, Lipizzans, Palominos, Arabians, Hanovarians, Norwegian Fjords, Clydesdales, champion jumpers and what-have-you (http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/horses/Horses.htm#L)."
Kagel concluded, "Inquiries should be made through http://www.horsecloning.com/."
Contact:
Peter Kagel
305 304 0368
email: reminds@mindspring.com - please reference "horsecloning"
posted by Kim Davis @ 10:45 AM
