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Lawsuit Over Quarter Horse's Clone May Redefine Animal Breeding
schwit1 sends this report from the LA Times:
"Lynx Melody Too, a clone of a renowned quarter horse, is at the center of a lawsuit that could change the world of animal breeding and competition. Texas horse breeder Jason Abraham and veterinarian Gregg Veneklasen sued the American Quarter Horse Assn., claiming that Lynx Melody Too should be allowed to register as an official quarter horse. A Texas jury decided in their favor in 2013, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling in January, saying there was 'insufficient' evidence of wrongdoing by the association.
The suit is among the first to deal with the status of clones in breeding and competition, and its outcome could impact a number of fields, including thoroughbred horse racing and dog breeding. The quarter horse association is adamant that clones and their offspring have no place in its registry. "It's what AQHA was founded on — tracking and preserving the pedigrees of these American quarter horses," said Tom Persechino, executive director of marketing for the association. "When a person buys an American quarter horse, they want to know that my quarter horse has the blood of these horses running through it, not copies of it."
The suit is among the first to deal with the status of clones in breeding and competition, and its outcome could impact a number of fields, including thoroughbred horse racing and dog breeding. The quarter horse association is adamant that clones and their offspring have no place in its registry. "It's what AQHA was founded on — tracking and preserving the pedigrees of these American quarter horses," said Tom Persechino, executive director of marketing for the association. "When a person buys an American quarter horse, they want to know that my quarter horse has the blood of these horses running through it, not copies of it."
"they want to know that my quarter horse has the blood of these horses running through it, not copies of it"
Unless American quarter horses are sinister equine vampires of some kind, I'm fairly sure that no quarter horse has the blood of any other quarter horse, let alone multiple quarter horses, running through it. That's just not this 'heredity' stuff works.
If they can clone 1/4 horse today, it won't be long until they can clone an entire horse.
If he doesn't like it, he can set up his own "2/8 Horse" association and certify which horses are officially "2/8 Horses".
"When a person buys an American quarter horse, they want to know that my quarter horse has the blood of these horses running through it, not copies of it."
Well, ick. Blood from horses that lived fifty or a hundred years ago must be getting seriously stinky by now.
In other news, this spokesman appears to be willfully ignorant of the most rudimentary concepts of biology. I guess "understanding" would ruin the nobility and romance of breeding...
If they want to be "tracking and preserving the pedigrees" then they BETTER track the clones as they carry the pedigree. When the original dies now, the pedigree can also die - of course, it would continue if there were decendents. But depending on what happens that "all important" pedigree can die - unless it is duplicated.
What is a quarter horse, and what does it have to do with breeding and cloning?
This is slashdot, not a farrier.
This is no different than the music and movie industry - an archaic business segment eliminated through innovation that allows better quality for 1/10th the price.
n/t
Have gnu, will travel.
Imagine the future NBA if it permitted clones. Every team would be fielding a dream team with clones of the same player on multiple teams.
It completely destroys their monopoly. They basically just discovered how to factory produce diamonds, they have to make sure they are never worth as much or their entire organisation is doomed.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Cloning would completely destroy the sport. The whole fcking point is the slow and laborious process of breeding the prefect horse. Every one unique. It is not about stealing a clipping of the winner horses hair and creating a copy, or generically engineering an even better race horse. Considering that both the sports and the breeding would be destroyed by the ability to just create whatever you want in the lab, how else are they to respond?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
At the moment, natural-born animals have fewer complications throughout their lives.
Keeping track of pedigrees is arguably more important now that clones are starting to show up.
Horses are expensive; who wants to lay out $10K (or more) without some assurance that your horse will live a heathly life.
See problems with animal cloning:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu...
said Tom Persechino, executive director of marketing for the association. "When a person buys an American quarter horse, they want to know that my quarter horse has the blood of these horses running through it, not copies of it."
Does Mr. Persechino not understand what the word "copy" means? Perhaps he's never met twins?
It sounds a lot like the diamond industry where they finally perfected an industrial means of making diamonds at a much lower price than the ones that De Beers charge for their "precious" diamonds. So what does the "precious" diamond industry do? They claim that manufactured diamonds aren't as "precious" as the ones they dig out of the ground. No shit Sherlock! The price is set by the supply, but now the supply is not so small now is it? And as for the diamonds? I don't think they "care" whether they're made in some deep volcanic process or in an industrial plant. They're still... DIAMONDS!
In Canada the hypermale Starbuck clone was create from Starbuck the more prolific semen donor in history, the semen of the clone was illegal in Canada (article in french) the funny part hs semens is legal in USA.
By the way the Starbuck name was use as a title of a Canadian film that was remake in the USA under the name of Delivery Man . think of that the next time you put milk in your coffee.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
* Lynx Melody Too
* Lynx Melody Tre
* Lynx Meldo Qua
so on and so on
Would gold still have its value for the rest of us, if someone came up with a way to make it and then got some recognized authority to declare it is the same as the original?
When you can mass produce a product that usually is valued due to its limited status, you destroy the value of that product.
Any sufficiently profound stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Cloned horses shouldn't be register-able. It potentially taints the breed.
Separately, the organization who runs the breed should be able to do whatever they please. If you don't like it, go start your own breed.
Yes, the American Quarter Horse Association is woefully ignorant of science and biology here. But none of that matters. The bottom line is the association is a private, non-governmental organization, and provided they are following federal law and state law where they are headquartered, they should have the right to admit or bar any horse they want. If they decide to bar white horses because its Tuesday, that's their privilege.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
2. There's an element of "follow the money" here. Breeding in those industries is big money. Will the ones who make the most from breeding be opposed to cloning, or would they want to be able to copy their best animals for perpetual breeding income long after the original died? Of course, the species can't improve through cloning, so even if the process is perfect it really shouldn't have a huge impact. Couple three generations later, the breeding competition should be able to come along with a much better animal than that copy some breeder has been hoarding for a few decades.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Synthetic ruby and sapphire are even better examples. They are dissed because they are flawless and inexpensive.
Scientifically, I agree the clone should qualify.
But how is this an issue for the courts? Why should there be a legal definition of a certified quarter horse?
I just think if a dorky organization wants to certify horses that exclude clones, they should be able to until such time as it comes becomes bankrupt.
-Dave
1st, the AQHA is about improving the breed. You cannot improve a breed with cloning, you can simply copy it. Copying leads to stagnation and is a genetic end game. Eventually all quarter-horses would simply become copies of previous horses, if you accept the slippery slope argument if you do not at least a substantial portion of the breed would become copies.
2nd, The value of a horse, particularly a mare, is based on its winnings and potential breeding. A mare may only foal a certain number of times in her life so her value is limited, assume 1 foal every 18 months and a 25 year breeding span 17 times would result. Cloning radically changes those valuations and some mares would become substantially more valuable with others being used as mere incubators.
Also, to all the people harping on the blood comment: You know what they mean. You also know they do not mean it the way you are trying to portray it. AQHA breeders know far more equine biology than you so quit trying to show your superiority through snark and lack of reading comprehension.
As we saw with Dolly the Sheep, a clone is not an exact copy of an animal. It may contain nearly all the DNA information but first this DNA may be damaged (if nothing else, shortened telomers) and second it may not contain all the exact matrilineal content. This include both midocondral DNA as well as an epigenetic controls the mother's cell line places on its DNA. It is possible someone could have take those into account and made the best possible approximation to those. But it also possible that the crucial developmental characteristics of a quarter horse are in those missing elements.
Thus at a minimum the Quarter horse association could reasonably say that unless the donor cell line is from a quarter horse, it is not a quarter horse. It would also be someone reasonable to say that even with that precaution the shortened telomers mean this is a genetically damaged quarter horse and they want to exclude it from breeding with genetically healthy quarter horses.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
... so it's their rules.
We're done here.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Just because you clone Michael Jordan doesn't mean you automatically have an NBA all-star. It still requires years of time, effort, and money in order to prepare.
The PURPOSE of animal husbandry (which the AQHA is a cross between an animal husbandry records organization tracking the breeding programs of thousands of people doing it within the auspices of the same, and a competition organization to provide the reference for to which you COMPARE the results of the recorded breeding programs...) is to meticulously go through the proces of managing selection by deterministic choices on breeding pairs.
Cloning circumvents this.
What the man's talking about is bloodlines and DNA, not the stupid fucking remarks you just made.
But then, this is /. I can't imagine WHY I'm offended, upset, etc. at yet another poo flinging monkey that feels that he's smarter than the rest of them flinging poo on the electronic wall.
MODS! Lay down your damn crack pipes. The parent post isn't even remotely insightful.
Lynx Melody hasn't been dead for 70 years, so clearly her DNA is still copyrighted.
Horse racing is all about genetic and breeding differences. The whole industry is predicated on unique horses that provides artificial scarcity. Horse race gambling is entire predicated on the chance that an unknown will be bred with enough genetic difference that allows it to be a better athlete.
While it's true that there isn't a huge difference between genetically created clones and breeding (genetic manipulation either way, breeding is just more random), the fact that cloning can lead to multiple copies and genetic enhancements would destroy the industry. Requiring traditional breeding techniques may be seen as "idealistic rubbish" but it supports a multi-billion dollar industry (39 billion in the US alone).
If clone makers really want to race their creations, why don't they start their own horse racing league and their own horse registry?
If you want to watch a race with a level playing field and where the rider/driver makes the major difference, it's called NASCAR.
Just in case you've all forgotten: breeding can make new animals, possibly very different from anything seen before. Cloning can only make very similar copies of preexisting animals. One advances the breed, the other stagnates.
I suspect they want to rake in the wins without having to actually innovate. Then when someone surpasses them, they'll copy that too -- which tech company was I talking about again? I forget.
In Soviet Russia, wild fox breeding create surprise.
Domesticated silver fox
Dmitry Belyaev and Fox Experiments
Flat racing is a small part of the American Quarter Horse breed use. For years, the American Quarter Horse was the most popular breed in the USA and may still be. Many of the horses seen at rodeos, chasing cattle, racing around barrels, or reining, are American Quarter Horses. They are popular for ranch work and for the pleasure/family pet, and even show up in jumping and dressage events . Although the registry sets standards for size, color, and body type, there is tremendous variation between bloodlines. The AQHA represents a much broader group of interests than the American Jockey Club, which is the registry for the Thoroughbred.
The AQHA has been very successful in promoting their registry and AQH breeders benefit whether they are members or not. Part of the responsibility of a registry is to protect the brand and from a branding perspective, cloning animals is actually similar to cloning other products, Most people have experience with knock-off and generic products - items that purport to have the same characteristics of a branded item - essentially clones. And then there are counterfeits which are unidentified clones. A cloned animal is either a knock-off or counterfeit product and what reputable business embraces either?
But breeders do split from a registry and create new/alternate lineages with its own stud book and registry-sanctioned events and promotions. It's a lot of work and clearly understandable why one would want to change the rules if they can.
would it be classed as incest or masturbation? any opinions?
I got to the chocolate box before you, that's why the hard ones have teeth marks.
They're quite right not to allow some shimmy shammy clone to register on the merits of it's DNA, just look at what happened with the Storm Trooper fiasco. They took one incredible bounty hunter, with mad skills and fantastic aim - and churned out millions of copies that couldn't hit the side of the huge desert crawling robot factory. They also had no appreciable hand to hand skills or the same muscle tone.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
It would seem that the AQHA prefers a tree over a forest, or a single-world interpretation over a many-worlds interpretation. Or one God over many Gods, or the one religious view over the view point dethroning all religions from their special status and placing them as parts of cultural history, similarly to languages. Texas has shown a new, refreshingly different side of it's people.
I hate clones.
Why just the other day one of those Kate Upton clones showed up at my door, wet and shivering from a sudden rainstorm.
Do you know what she said? "I'm cold and freezing, please let me in and I'll do anything you want if you'll warm me up."
Of course I slammed the door in her face. She had no idea how to set the backlash in the differential I was installing in my car.
Stupid clone. "I'll do anything" she said. Useless.
Up until now if someone had an elite horse there was a limited amount of breeding it could do but that limit was still a huge number of horses. Thus most of the racing elite could get a taste of that DNA on their ranch. This kept out the riff-raff but still allowed the fairly rich to play. But with full on Cloning this will leave all but the richest unable to pay for this. For most of the horses that result from breeding a great horse just aren't champions.
But even worse is that if a real uber-champion comes along the normal course of events is that it would have a few good years and then be put out to breed. Now a very rich person could breed a new copy pretty much every year so that at least one copy of the uber-champion is ready to run. This person might not even sell the copies, just keep running them and keep wining.
So think of hockey team where they are able to buy only the entire line up of the best players. But then these players literally never retire.
So while these guys obviously have no real idea how DNA works; what they are doing is trying to twist reality into a form that suits their needs. The general rule of thumb is the further you bend reality the worse it hurts when it snaps back into your face.
telomeres
If you're caught with a cloned or hacked Pokemon, you are banned from official competitions.
How is that so hard to replicate with horse racing?
Just add another column to the registration database for clone status or something.
Horses used to be a robust, hardy, tough animals that could not only survive in the wild, but were also not prone to disease, and could work hard in the fields.
Now they are some of the most fragile creatures out there. Breeding almost exclusively for speed (racing), agility (dressage), or lightness (jumpers), we've ruined the species, just like we ruin everything else we touch in the name of profit.
that as a clone, the horse will of course be a soulless tool of Satan, existing only to usher in the era of the Antichrist.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
California Clone takes Kentucky Derby!