Horse cloning stirs debate in 'Horse Capital of World'

OCALA, Fla. — The chestnut stallion was the love of Zarela Olsen's life.

A majestic hall-of-fame horse with personality and a copper coat bright as a new penny, Capuchino often greeted his fawning owner with kisses, nuzzling her neck and licking the back of her ears.

"When he died, he took my heart with him," said Olsen, 46, of the Paso Fino horse who died in Ocala, Fla., in 2009. "I could not stop crying and crying."

But Olsen had planned ahead, investing $160,000 in the replicating services of a biotech company specializing in the controversial practice of animal cloning. Her champion's genetic duplicate, Capuchino Forever, was born last May. His birth — and the increasing number of horses cloned in the U.S. — has spawned debate and wonder among breeders and owners in the equine world, including Marion County, self-proclaimed "Horse Capital of the World."

"They smell money," said Carol Harris, 86, owner of Bo-Bett Farm near Ocala, a horse breeder for about 60 years and an outspoken opponent of cloning champions. "They're looking for a shortcut to a great horse."

Harris, whose American Quarter Horse stallion Rugged Lark won the title of Super Horse twice in the 1980s, said she fears horse owners someday may need patents for their champions instead of registration papers.

She said she doesn't oppose cloning in the name of science and equine health but also doesn't think it should be widespread, sanctioned or embraced by horse organizations, which aim to preserve and protect the breed.

"Breeding is an art," she said. "Cloning is just replication."

Harris said horse owners who want to clone their animals — and insist on having their offspring certified as purebred American Quarter Horses — ought to form their own association.

"No one's stopping them," she said.

'Ick' factor

Many others in the equine industry also think cloning is horsing around with nature.

Powerful horse associations have enacted rules forbidding the registration of clones, a prohibition that prevents the animals from competing in breed-sanctioned events and lessens their stud value. The Stud Book and Registration Committee of the American Quarter Horse Association, which met last month at the association's convention in Kissimmee, Fla., nixed a proposed rule change that would have allowed registration of clones.

The association's seal adds value to horses: The better the pedigree, the more valuable the horse.

"I think God should be in charge of what kind of colt you end up with," said quarter-horse owner Virg Search, 58, of Ohio, who weighed in on the American Quarter Horse Association's Facebook page when the Stud Book decision was announced.

The Jockey Club, thoroughbred racing's governing body in North America, keeps the tightest rein on breeding practices, restricting registration to animals born only from the traditional coupling of stallion and mare.

Cloning proponents say some opposition may be a result of ignorance.

"There's a little bit of an 'ick' factor for some people," said Karen Batra, spokeswoman for BIO, a 1,200- member organization of biotechnology companies. "They're thinking it's growing Frankensteins in a lab, and that's simply not the case."

Texas A&M University professor Katrin Hinrichs, a veterinarian and lead scientist on the team that in 2005 produced "Paris Texas," the first cloned horse in North America, said the process involves live tissue cells taken from under the skin of a prized horse.

10-time champion

A horse owner, Hinrichs defended cloning as a powerful research tool that can help scientists find cures for diseases in horses and other animals by isolating and studying the effects of genetics and environment.

She said the cloning process also can help preserve for future breeding generations the equine genetics of great competitive horses that often are gelded, or castrated, before their athletic prowess can be discovered.

Scamper, for instance, was a workhorse gelding before he became a 10-time barrel-racing champion.

The first clone of an adult mammal was "Dolly," a sheep born in 1996. Italian scientists cloned the first horse in 2003, named Prometea, a mare. About 65 equine clones now exist in the world, at least 50 of which were produced by ViaGen, a Texas-based biotech company Olsen used to clone Capuchino, who was crowned the Paso Fino "Horse of the Millennium" in 1999.

ViaGen spokeswoman Candace Dobson wouldn't disclose precisely how many cloned horses ViaGen has produced. But the number is increasing.

The company, which is expecting the births of 50 more clones this year, has produced quarter horses, polo ponies, Arabians and thoroughbreds for athletic competitions that don't require breed-registration papers.

ViaGen, which offers no guarantees that a clone of a champion will become a champion, has produced clones of barrel-racing horse Scamper; show-jumping champion and 1988 Olympic silver medalist Gem Twist; famed bucking horse Go Wild; and national cutting horse legends Royal Blue Boon, Lynx Melody and Playboys Ruby.

'It's you!'

Some critics, horse-owners and genetic researchers who cite scientific arguments, also contend the clones are not exact duplicates of the originals and could possibly produce a horse of a different color pattern.

But, Hinrichs noted, even identical twins have recognizable differences.

No one knows whether Capuchino Forever will mirror the success of the original, a horse who entertained crowds on two continents, sired more than 5,000 offspring at $3,500 per stud and who possessed a gait so smooth, Olsen said, "you could sip a glass of wine aboard him and never spill a drop."

After all, the foal's environment, including his training, will shape him, too.

But unless the rules change, Capuchino Forever won't even have a chance to follow in his predecessor's hoofprints. Though the Florida-based Paso Fino Horse Association permits registration of horses born with the aid of other reproductive technologies such as artificial insemination, it does not allow the registration of clones — or the offspring of clones.

But Olsen feels déjà vu with her beloved horse's spitting image.

"The first time I saw him, I cried again," Olsen said of the chestnut foal, stabled in Madison. "'He even gave me two little licks behind my ears. I cried, 'Capuchino, it's you! You're back!' "