…WHILE CLONED PONIES ARE BEING RIDDEN ON THE POLO FIELD
In 2016, Adolfo Cambiaso – the Lionel Messi of the polo world – made history when he rode not one, but six cloned polo ponies, in the final of the prestigious Argentine Open Championship. The ponies were all copies of the same animal, an exceptionally agile mare named Cuartetera, and they were produced by Cambiaso’s own cloning company, Crestview Genetics.
The practice has fuelled concerns that it offers an unfair advantage to those with the funds to afford it, but the body that governs Argentinian polo is remarkably relaxed. It basically permits any breeding technique that elevates the level of play, cloning included.
Meanwhile, other sporting equines have been cloned, including thoroughbreds and jumping horses, and the relevant governing bodies all have their own rulings. There is, for example, no reason why a cloned horse couldn’t compete in the Olympic Games, although this has yet to happen.
But no one knows just how identical or otherwise these clones will really be. Every living thing is subject to the same interacting forces of genetics and the environment or ‘nature and nurture.’ So, although clones may have the same nuclear DNA as the animal they’re derived from, this isn’t enough to guarantee an exact replica. Some characteristics, such as muscle mass, are more heritable than others, such as personality. The environment that an animal is raised in, before and after birth, can affect the activity of key genes with dramatic repercussions. This is why some of Cuartetera’s clones have different markings, why some cloned sniffer dogs never graduate from training and why cloned pets will never ‘be’ the same as the original. Just like identical human twins, cloned non-human animals may be similar, but they’ll never be truly identical to each another.
“There is no reason why a cloned horse couldn’t compete in the Olympics”