Source: PRNewswire
July 29, 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 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. (Read EQUUS magazine’s How Researchers Cloned the First Equid)
“It’s a bit of a gamble with a huge potential payoff,” said 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. 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,” Kagel continued. “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.
“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.”
“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 continued. “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, Hanoverians, Norwegian Fjords, Clydesdales, champion jumpers and what-have-you.”
According to Kagel, inquiries should be made through horsecloning.com.
