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Lawsuit Over Quarter Horse's Clone May Redefine Animal Breeding

Posted by Soulskill on from the reasons-genetic-superhorses-will-take-over-the-world dept.

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."

33 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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.

    1. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      In this case wouldn't the clone be more valuable, since it actually has the blood of an other quarter horse running through it?

    2. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by Deadstick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Perhaps some people worship animal pedigrees because it's no longer socially acceptable to do it with humans...

    3. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They are loaded with the "blood" of various champion animals through recorded provenance. They just don't want to allow clones into the competition, or for people to claim they are selling the genes of a horse which won, which didn't.

      It's a breeding competition, not a cloning competition.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    4. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by khchung · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In this case wouldn't the clone be more valuable, since it actually has the blood of an other quarter horse running through it?

      Obviously, logical thinking is unacceptable when one's income is threatened by it.

      --
      Oliver.
    5. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by OzPeter · · Score: 2

      They are loaded with the "blood" of various champion animals through recorded provenance.

      If the horse is a clone, then doesn't it have the provenance of horse whose clone it is?

      On the other hand does the birth mare contribute biological material to the fetus, thus meaning that there can be no such thing as a true clone?

      On the third hand, I have no I idea if these breeding associations accept In vitro fertilization and surrogacy as a part of their breeding programs? - if they do, that would invalidate my second point.

      Standard disclaimer: IANAGNAHB - I am not a geneticist, nor a horse breeder

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    6. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Obviously, logical thinking is unacceptable when one's income is threatened by it.

      Well, that is the real issue. Cloning could totally disrupt horse breeding. Why bother with lots of trial and error, when you can just clone a hundred copies of Secretariat? Barriers to entry would be far lower, stud fees would disappear, and horse racing attendance may drop from lack of interest in watching identical horses compete. For thoroughbreds, not only is cloning banned, but they don't even allow artificial insemination or embryo transfer. The whole industry is predicated on artificial scarcity.

    7. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by macs4all · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Obviously, logical thinking is unacceptable when one's income is threatened by it.

      Well, that is the real issue. Cloning could totally disrupt horse breeding. Why bother with lots of trial and error, when you can just clone a hundred copies of Secretariat? Barriers to entry would be far lower, stud fees would disappear, and horse racing attendance may drop from lack of interest in watching identical horses compete. For thoroughbreds, not only is cloning banned, but they don't even allow artificial insemination or embryo transfer. The whole industry is predicated on artificial scarcity.

      But then, you could have an entirely different race, the IROC of horse-racing; where the only difference was (supposedly) the skill of the Jockeys and the horses' "crews"...

    8. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by dAzED1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      "(i.e., a perfect copy of a previous, 'natural-born' horse)" - it's not that. Not at all. Even if the horse lives, and seems to have a healthy life, and breeds...its children could have problems. Or maybe the clone will just be fine for 5 years, and suddenly have problems.

      Your dna /ages/ in a sense. Unless you're cloning an infant, there are differences...and even then really, since even an infant has lost telomeres, and a variety of other things. If you cloned a blastocyst, it would probably be ok. Anything after that...problems occur, and we don't yet fully know why. More importantly, we don't know how to test for the potential problems, since we don't have a complete picture of what causes them. It is correct to exclude clones, in as much as it can be correct to worry about breed purity in the first place. You do understand that fields such as epigenetics and cloning in general are pretty much in their own infancy right now, right?

    9. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Rest assured, the people who worship animal pedigrees DO worship human pedigrees as well, no matter how retarded the idea is.

    10. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by Angeret · · Score: 2

      You might be able to brew an identical champion horse but, will it still be the same horse with a different training regime, rider, food, etc? Changes will occur from the very moment treatment and environment are in any way different from the original animal. Perfect cloning is the stuff of dreams and will stay that way as even differences between individual neurons in the brain will make changes to a given clone. You might even end up with a horse that won't race.

    11. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by Xest · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure that's really true, cloning the best horse at the time doesn't preclude the possibility of a breeder breeding an even better horse for racing and so forth.

      Then of course there's disease vulnerability, there's every possibility a disease could wipe out all the clones, whilst allowing many of the bred ones to survive.

      Once you've discovered a horse is awesome in a race or whatever, it's already an adult, so sure you can clone it at that point you know it's awesome, but you still have to wait for the clones to grow up. In the meantime it's possible an even more awesome horse has already had time to grow up and enter the game and all those who bought their close are going to be embarrassed by being uncompetitive.

      I don't see this harming breeding and horse racing, at best it's going to give more people access to a very good horse, but you're still going to need to try and breed even better horses if you want to give yourself the edge and more chance of winning.

      In car racing you could all already build an identical car to the competition and have every car be exactly equal, but no one does that, everyone still tries to build a better car to give them the edge. It's really no different.

      These guys in the summary would have an argument if we were talking about genetic manipulation, because then you could argue both an unfair advantage and that the manipulation means the horse is no longer of the correct breed, it's a custom breed, but that's not what's happening so their argument is basically wholly based on ignorance, they're talking like the type of folks who believe the world is 6,000 years old and flat - they're completely clueless about the science of genetics (which is disturbing for an organisation whose job is purportedly to deal with ensuring exactly that) and are arguing wholly on the basis of superstition.

      If I wanted one of these horses their argument would put me off completely so they're probably doing more harm than good for themselves. If they don't have a basic grasp of genetics how can I even begin to trust their ability to ensure I'm getting what I'm paying for? They're supposedly guaranteeing me a breed, but they've no idea what a breed even is.

    12. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by danbert8 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm envisioning this going the way of NASCAR and there end up being massive horse pileups to keep the crowd entertained...

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    13. Re:Weak, sentimental, nonsense. by dAzED1 · · Score: 2

      It has *everything* to do with the complaint. They certify a breed. The clone is *not* a perfect equivalent, and will have problems that the parents did not impart, and that the original did not have. The primary (secondary, and tertiary) point of having a certified bloodline is to be able to have certainty of particular traits, and consistency. A clone won't have that - they'll have new, unique problems. Or maybe they'll be ok, but their children will have problems. Allowing them in as equal status *does* go against the entire (ethically highly questionable) purpose of the breed registry.

  2. of course they are worried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they can clone 1/4 horse today, it won't be long until they can clone an entire horse.

  3. Society to Preserve the Sacred Mysteries by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 2

    "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...

  4. innovation by knightghost · · Score: 2

    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.

    1. Re:innovation by bws111 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Uh, yeah. Maybe someone should enter an F1 car in a horse race and call it 'innovation'. Breeding is part of the competition. Cloning is not 'innovation', it is cheating.

    2. Re:innovation by knightghost · · Score: 2

      Cloning replaces breeding, therefore breeding becomes irrelevant. "Cheating" that you mention is 100% opinion. And we did replace those roman chariot races with F1 cars, right?

  5. Begun the Clone War has. by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

    n/t

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  6. Or Course they will never allow it by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.
  7. Current Cloning Problems by eric31415927 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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...

  8. Sounds like horseshit to me. by Johnny+Loves+Linux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:Sounds like horseshit to me. by itzly · · Score: 2

      Does Mr. Persechino not understand what the word "copy" means? Perhaps he's never met twins?

      Perhaps he understands that the "copy" you get from cloning is not a perfect copy, but a degraded version of the original. There's good reason to complain if clones are traded as if they were originals.

    2. Re:Sounds like horseshit to me. by The+Rizz · · Score: 2

      I don't think they "care" whether they're made in some deep volcanic process or in an industrial plant. They're still... DIAMONDS!

      Frankly, I'd go out of my way to NOT buy "real" diamonds but find the manufactured ones, instead. I'll choose the ones not supporting murder, borderline slave labor, and multinational anti-competitive practices and price fixing.

  9. Re:Allowing clones would ruin it by QuasiSteve · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So we would get to watch games that aren't highly subject to genetic differences, but ones purely based on training and skill? Tempting - where do I sign up?

  10. Clarke's Corollary to Hanlon's Razor by SQL+Error · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any sufficiently profound stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.

  11. Missing the point by davmoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
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    1. Re:Missing the point by radarskiy · · Score: 2

      "they should have the right to admit or bar any horse they want"

      But they also have an obligation to adhere to the rules they already established in the contractual relations with its members and its charter.

      The very question at hand is whether AQHA actually has a rule that forbids cloned horses, and thus it becomes a matter of contract law.

  12. Clone != exact copy by goombah99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  13. Re:Allowing clones would ruin it by RDW · · Score: 2

    So we would get to watch games that aren't highly subject to genetic differences, but ones purely based on training and skill? Tempting - where do I sign up?

    Tipoca City, Kamino.

  14. Re:Good by Archangel_Azazel · · Score: 2

    "Raising horses is a hobby, not an economic venture."

    Might want to check up on your information. I know of few to NONE of the breeders out there that just do it because they can. There's a *lot* of money tied up in horse racing. Hence all the hubbub.

    --
    Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.
  15. Re:torn by iggymanz · · Score: 2

    Such idealistic rubbish. The point of horse racing is to be first across the finish line. There is huge money in winning. People squabble about what manner and condition of animals should be allowed to compete, but that's of less than secondary importance. Once in a while identical racehorse twins were born, and those have sometimes been champions in modern times, so the ancients may have raced clones..