No-Clone Zone: AQHA Postpones Cloning Decision (Again)

by Fran Jurga | 9 March 2009 | The Jurga Report at Equisearch.com

Clones are knocking on the door of the American Quarter Horse Association, seeking legitimate places in the largest breed registry in the world. "Go away! Come back next year!" came the cry from within at yesterday's AQHA committee meeting. (Fran Jurga/Puppet Tool software image)

Yesterday was billed as the Day of Decision at the annual convention of the American Quarter Horse Association in San Antonio, Texas. The issue: the AQHA's Stud Book and Registration Committee was scheduled to vote on the inclusion of clones (genetic replicas via engineered reproduction and DNA replacement) in the definition of an American Quarter Horse, opening the door for clones to be eligible for registration.

First reports from the San Antonio meeting indicate that a motion to postpone the decision for another year was passed by the committee. However, I believe the committee's recommendation needs the official stamp of the larger organization, as well as the appointment of a task force to further study the implications of registering clones, leading up to another airing at the 2010 AQHA Convention.

This story is not dead. Just like the late great Quarter horses who have been cloned, the story keeps having new life breathed into it. Over the past 10 years, the AQHA has progressed (or regressed, according to your political view) to allow frozen and fresh artificial insemination...then survived a lawsuit that opened the door to allow embryo transfer...and finally winds up with genetic clones on the doorstep of the registry office.

Clones may be the ultimate and most expensive "unwanted horses" in the universe, at least temporarily, when it comes to registration-paper legitimacy. That will surely change, even as multiple clones of champion cutting horse Smart Little Lena grow up in their "equus non grata" state of limbo. Other clones are replicas of favorite horses engineered for a fee for individual owners.

Clones are technically allowed to compete in cutting and reining, but the whole point of cloning Smart Little Lena or the mare Royal Blue Boon is not to compete, but to breed. And breed. And breed, thus infusing the breed with the bloodlines of champions who would otherwise have limited offspring. The number of foals sired by Smart Little Lena could be infinite in the future....as could be the number of exact genetic replicas of Smart Little Lena himself standing at stud all over the world!

Cloning is wonderful technology and yesterday's decision gives one hope that when the AQHA allows clones to join the registry--which surely seems inevitable--it will do it with a plan that is responsible and fair.

The much bigger story here is that once the AQHA allows cloning, other breed registries will surely follow suit. The framework and perhaps welfare of our entire horse world depends on the AQHA to lead the way, if it decides to, in a way that will encourage other breeds to be responsible in their policies and ensure the safety and welfare of horses and the viability of breeds and breeding.

You know what the critics are asking: Are we ready for offshore breeding laboratories, unauthorized DNA capture, and lawsuits over the implications of mitochondrial DNA? Are we entering the age of Dr. Frankenhorse or a new era of genetic analysis and engineering that may be able to better all breeds?

Something I've been wondering: Couldn't the cloned AQHA halter horses be manipulated so they have feet of proportionate size to their bodies?

If I was to give advice to the AQHA, I'd suggest that for every dollar a clone costs, an equal amount be put into research to predict, analyze and remove threats of genetic disorders from the breed. The same energy that figured out how to select a coat color for a clone could certainly go a long way on the health front. HYPP and HERDA may be only the tip of an iceberg, and those who want to register and breed clones should be responsible for any headaches and heartaches their engineered horses introduce to the bloodlines of the horses the rest of us just want to own and ride.

Stay tuned for more news!

Update: After this post was published, a press release from AQHA confirmed that the vote had been postponed to the 2010 convention and that a task force had been formed to continue to investigate how cloning might impact the breed, and vice versa. Click here to read the official announcement from the AQHA.

"A Bad Time to Be a Horse": New York Times Examines Struggling Horse Businesses and Rescue Farms in the Northeast

by Fran Jurga | 2 March 2009 | The Jurga Report at Equisearch.com

Empty saddle racks in a New York City area stable reflect empty stalls at boarding barns. Where did the horses go?

Yesterday's New York Times was filled with financial news, economic downturn reports, and more stories yet about how people are coping with less or clinging to their jobs for dear life. It seems like only yesterday I savored Sunday morning with the papers spread out around me on the living room floor. Coffee in hand, I'd read about art and films and museums and books and peruse the ads for cars or clothes or jobs. 

Newspapers are different these days. The ads are all but gone and the cultural coverage is a shadow of itself. Instead, the paper is a survival guide to life here in the New York/Boston neighborhood. And the New York Times, thanks to its excellent web site, is as likely to be read online as on the living room floor.

Imagine my surprise when I saw an article about how the economic downturn is affecting horse businesses in metro New York. I did a double-take. A photo of a tack room, sans tack, really hit home with me.

I've just returned from attending the American Farrier's Association convention, a rare horse-related event that possibly exceeded its organizers' expectations. I know there were more farriers in attendance than I had expected, and they were in good spirits. While some shook their heads and told tales of how bad it (supposedly) was in some part of the country or another, the farriers who spoke with me said cautiously, "It hasn't hit me...yet...." 

But I noticed that the attendees tended to have gray hair and the look of successful professionals; I was obviously talking to established businessmen and -women. How different might it be for someone further down the success ladder, or for someone starting out? 

One farrier school owner told me that applications were up, and that he had more students than ever, a fact he attributed to insecurity. "People are losing their jobs, they want a backup skill, they want to work for themselves," he assured me. But will there be work for them all?

They can't shoe horses that aren't there anymore.

The Sunday papers are stuffed in the recycling bin now, but I want to share the Times article with you. I know that not everyone is out of work. I know some people still have the means to help out a horse in need. Whether it means bringing one home or sending a monthly check to a rescue farm or putting a donations jar on the counter where you work or rolling up your sleeves to clean stalls at a rescue farm...what are you doing? what can you do? when will you do it?

We can all do a lot more than we think we can, and the editors would welcome an article or a flurry of letters about how the horse world is pulling together in spite of the empty stalls and lifeless tack rooms. A good-news story would be welcome next Sunday on my living room floor, and yours, I'm sure.

Click here to read the New York Times article on horse rescue farms and businesses in the area.

Click here to view a slide show of images from the Times article.

Five Million More Quarter Horses? AQHA Will Host Open Forum on Cloning Option

by Fran Jurga | 13 January 2009 | The Jurga Report on equisearch.com

Did you receive that nice triangle-shaped green brochure in the mail recently? I did, and I expect most or all AQHA members did. It was from a company called ViaGen and I wondered how I had gotten on their mailing list. Today, I found out.

The American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) is planning to host an open forum on the subject of cloning at the group's annual convention next month in San Antonio, Texas. The forum is scheduled for Friday, March 6, 2009 from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt Hotel.

According to the AQHA's announcement, this forum's panel will include representatives from equine industry and educational research institutions.

Whether they are watching from the audience, or participate directly in the forum, representatives of ViaGen have a lot riding on that forum. Since the closing of slaughterhouses, ViaGen had to move its lab to Canada to be close to slaughterable mares to harvest uterus parts, but they know that a nod from the AQHA to allow clones of the world's Quarter horses to be registered would be the answer to the company's prayers. It would be the first breed association to take that giant step. Add that the AQHA is the largest and most influential breed association in the world, and you see all that could be at stake here for ViaGen and the next generation of the ready-to-blossom equine reproduction technology field.

Within the past couple of years, commercial cloning of a number of horses, including American Quarter Horses, has been well publicized. Racing mules have been cloned, but most of the clones you hear about are high-end international-level show jumpers, like Gem Twist. The western horses have been primarily cutting horses or rodeo event horses, so the fact that the horses were not AQHA-registered was not a significant factor; cutting and barrel racing organizations allow any horse to compete.

Under Rule 227(a) of the AQHA Official Handbook, a rule that became effective in 2004, American Quarter Horses produced by any cloning process are not eligible for registration.

At the AQHA’s 2008 Convention, the Stud Book and Registration Committee (SBRC) received the first-ever proposed change to Rule 227(a); it was tabled then and has been brought back for 2009; the change would allow a live foal produced via a particular type of cloning to be registered if its DNA matches that of a registered American Quarter Horse.

Currently, the AQHA is not naming which particular procedure would be approved, but after seeing all the ViaGen ads cropping up on internet sites lately, it's not a tough guess.

In 2008, the SBRC recommended that any decision regarding the proposed change be postponed pending further study to be undertaken at the direction of the SBRC. As a result, on October 15, 2008, representatives from Colorado State University, Texas A&M University and ViaGen met with the SBRC in Amarillo to discuss the topic of cloning.

The proposed change to Rule 227(a) will be on the SBRC agenda in March in San Antonio. In an effort to make the most recent information on equine cloning available to AQHA members, AQHA has scheduled the open forum. The AQHA anticipates the forum will include presentations by panel of speakers from the equine industry and educational research institutions.

This forum will be open to all interested AQHA members. Save me a seat.

The SBRC meets on Monday.

The Superman Foal © 2009 Fran Jurga, created with Puppet Tool Software