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held in Hong Kong. The pair was also part of the silver medal team at the 2006 FEI World Equestrian Games in Aachen, Germany. Their list of victories is too long to list here. Sapphire was cloned by Blue Chip Farm in upstate New


York and her clones, who will also be used for breeding, have started showing locally. “I went to watch them and it was amazing,” says Kathleen. “They look like her and act like her and have the same technique.” While these two clones have all the advantages of proper


handling, nutrition and training, nature cannot completely override nurture. She cautions, “You have to put them in the hands of professional trainers who know how to handle babies. Blue Chip Farm has a trainer so they get started properly. I’ve sent a couple of other young clones up there.” Chris Sallee, executive director of the Belgian Warm-


blood Society (BWP) and employee of Blue Chip Farm, has handled and ridden Sapphire’s clones. “I think everybody who’s educated about cloning now realizes you can clone a horse but you can’t clone their heart and soul,” she says. “You can replicate the training program, but there are still a lot of parts that come into making a great horse.” She believes that the intended future for Sapphire’s


clones—for reproduction—looks bright. “The jury’s still out, but with our two horses we want to see them produce. We’re not trying to reproduce Sapphire’s performance—that’s not really our goal. Her full sister is also a great producer; the Van


Bunder’s, who bred her, have produced a lot of nice horses and we want to keep the blood- lines going. It’s fun because we’ve tried a variety of stallions since we can flush a couple of embryos out of each mare every year [the embryos are then trans- planted to surro- gate mares]. I think as far as breeding goes, cloning will be accepted; the jury’s out as far as performance goes, but we’ll see.”


The Cost of Cloning Because cloning comes with a steep price tag, it’s not likely that any backyard


Kara BC and Kidjaz BC, clones of Sapphire, were inspected in 2013 at the BWP Keuring, at age four.


Shetland ponies will be cloned any time soon, no matter how beloved they are, unless their owner has extremely deep pockets and wants to have some fun. ViaGen is currently offering a reduced price of $85,000 for cloning, with a second copy costing $75,000. The usual price for cloning a horse is $165,000 for one copy and $90,000 for a second copy.


“I think a lot more people might be willing to clone


horses at this rate,” says Kathleen. “I urge anyone who is seriously interested in cloning a horse to jump on this opportunity. Remember, it takes a few years until you have a mature horse, so if you’re even considering it you should get started now.” “You wouldn’t clone a backyard horse unless you had


a ton of money and did it for fun; we’re cloning horses like Cruising for breeding,” she continues. “Some people have cloned horses just to have one like the original, but then geld the clones, just to have a horse similar to the original. In the jumper world I’ve had a lot of return clients now; they are so impressed with how similar they are to the original horse, they’re coming back to clone another one.” The first time Ronald tried to clone Wiseguy it didn’t


The great jumper mare Sapphire and McLain Ward at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.


16 July/August 2015


work, so the next year they tried again. “Since I was not pleased with the way things went down, the second year they tried with more mares to get a better chance of getting one clone,” he explains. “I did not order three clones, but since they tried with more mares to play it safe,


Photos courtesy Chris Sallee


WiNG


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