Will racehorse cloning help or hurt the gambling industry?
I posted this in the sports forum as well.
I’ve chosen the topic of racehorse cloning for an opinion paper in my Sociology class. What do you guys think about the subject? Please give a valid, specific reason for your answer. Try to weigh both the pros and cons. Consider how the genetics of the horses could be affected and what unseen problems could arise.
Thanks!
Abby
I’d like to add that while racing cloned horses is against the rules, horses that are born from the clones are allowed to race.
Also, the cloned animal will have very little in common with the original DNA donor. The environmental factors that contributed to make a great racer (whether in the womb or not) would likely not be present a second time.
While genetic cloning and AI are illegal with the American Jockey club, if it were allowed it would initially help, then hurt the industry.
Taken as a given that cloning would be used when it is perfected to the degree that the resulting horse would have no defects, but be the traditional view of cloning where the DNA is identical and there are not resulting imperfections present in cloning today.
First, the racehorse industry would not change much – until cloning becomes more popular. For a time, people will be interested to see that the clones race as well as the ‘parent’. Eventually cloning and training will be perfected to the degree that the clone will perform equal to the ‘parent’.
The race horse industry is mostly based on betting and the thrill of trying to see who will win. With cloning, the winner will be predetermined. This will bore most of the industry and clones will have a low pay off, since their possibility of winning will be determined.
For example – a horse that has never won would have maybe 20 to 1 odds – which means they have a 1 out of 20 chance to win. On a 2 dollar bet, a horse with these odds would get the better 40 dollars. After this horse wins one race, the odds would go down to say 15 to 1, 10 to 1, with more wins and placings.
A horse with a history of winning would have 2 to 1 odds. A 2 dollar bet would get a better 4 dollars – not quite as fun.
A clone would have the same odds as the parent – so a 2 to 1 horse’s clone would start his first race at 2 to 1 odds. Today many young horses start their first race with 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 odds.
Therefore, no money for the gamblers and no thrill of trying to figure out who is going to win. There is also less thrill for the owners and trainers. While those that have the money to clone winners may be sitting pretty – those without that money will fall out of the industry.
The only other thing that may happen is that the smaller tracks will become more popular because the people who cannot afford to clone will still be breeding and the interest will still be there.
January 1st, 2010 at 5:45 am
Cloning, or anything other than natural in-hand breeding, is against the rules of The Jockey Club, which is the US registry for thoroughbred horses. (Unless that changed and I heard nothing about it…!) So cloning wouldn’t be allowed for racehorses in the first place. Not even AI is allowed.
Besides, a clone is an individual with the same genetic marker as another individual. Under a microscope, their DNA is identical….but that’s often where the identical-ness ends! Most cloned organisms are deficient in some way, have compromised autoimmune systems, and so on and so forth. Cloning is fascinating but not practical (or at least, for now.) It’s especially impractical if used for performance animals!
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January 1st, 2010 at 6:20 am
it will hurt, because it is unnatural. it is like trees. they are stronger when they are natural and wild. human trees are weak to viruses and diseases
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January 1st, 2010 at 6:51 am
on the pro side:
will create many good horses like red rum, over and over again.
cons:
all those red rums racing, it will be unfair if they stick in a novice!
its not a random chanse sport anymore, it will be vindicted by people being able to clone good horses.
Conclusion:
totally unfair because all the horses racing will have been cloned eventully, it shouldnt really be about the money, it should be about exersizing horses and having a bit of a laff along the way. its a way of life, not an experimenting farm. people arnt allowed to clone humans so why should they clone horses? the type of horse you get should be a mixture of the breeding and if you have shit bloodlines, you have a shit horse, if you are lucky enough to get champion bloodlines in a hprse, lucky you but if cloning goes ahead, everyone will have a horse of the same calibour because everyone will want the best, like mass made toys! every one is identical! they are not toys, they are animals and deserve the same rights as people do.
hope it helps
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January 1st, 2010 at 7:41 am
While genetic cloning and AI are illegal with the American Jockey club, if it were allowed it would initially help, then hurt the industry.
Taken as a given that cloning would be used when it is perfected to the degree that the resulting horse would have no defects, but be the traditional view of cloning where the DNA is identical and there are not resulting imperfections present in cloning today.
First, the racehorse industry would not change much – until cloning becomes more popular. For a time, people will be interested to see that the clones race as well as the ‘parent’. Eventually cloning and training will be perfected to the degree that the clone will perform equal to the ‘parent’.
The race horse industry is mostly based on betting and the thrill of trying to see who will win. With cloning, the winner will be predetermined. This will bore most of the industry and clones will have a low pay off, since their possibility of winning will be determined.
For example – a horse that has never won would have maybe 20 to 1 odds – which means they have a 1 out of 20 chance to win. On a 2 dollar bet, a horse with these odds would get the better 40 dollars. After this horse wins one race, the odds would go down to say 15 to 1, 10 to 1, with more wins and placings.
A horse with a history of winning would have 2 to 1 odds. A 2 dollar bet would get a better 4 dollars – not quite as fun.
A clone would have the same odds as the parent – so a 2 to 1 horse’s clone would start his first race at 2 to 1 odds. Today many young horses start their first race with 10 to 1 or 20 to 1 odds.
Therefore, no money for the gamblers and no thrill of trying to figure out who is going to win. There is also less thrill for the owners and trainers. While those that have the money to clone winners may be sitting pretty – those without that money will fall out of the industry.
The only other thing that may happen is that the smaller tracks will become more popular because the people who cannot afford to clone will still be breeding and the interest will still be there.
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January 1st, 2010 at 8:13 am
1024 is correct in the racing industry. Thoroughbreds currently only allow live coverage to be registered. That means artificial insemination isn’t even allowed like it is in stock breeds.
So obviously, a clone would not even be able to be registered to run.
Let me explain one very good theory on this regardless of whether clones are imperfect or not: The purpose of breeding horses is to create better ones. That ’s what selective breeding is about. If you continue to strive for a colt with a better stride than Secretariat or one with more heart than Barbaro, the industry has a purpose and individuals are always seeking and reaching to have a foal with improved potential. If you clone, what’s the purpose?
So if the auto industry was happy with the 1955 Chevy, why did engineers need to develop the Camaro? Do you see?
Lastly, one famous barrel racer has cloned her aged champion barrel horse. This was to create a foal (stud colt) with his genetics for breeding purposes only. The clone will not compete, but she can use his sperm to try to create a bloodline of future foals that would be genetically sired by her old champion. The clone has not yet produced a crop of foals, so we shall all see how this plan goes. But what she is doing here is different from just competing a clone. She is using the genetics to develop a new bloodline of horses that she hopes to improve upon.
One of the toughest decisions along these lines is registration. Even when donor mares were used to implant the eggs of top show mares, the stock breed registries had to be sued to allow more than one foal to be registered per year. And all of your big money is in one breed or another’s registered horses. So besides the ethical considerations, how would one go about registering clones? There is no protocol for this and I am grateful I am not on a committee somewhere trying to figure out the method.
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January 1st, 2010 at 9:02 am
Cloning horses will not guarantee the same horse..only dna structurally. The environment and training that goes into that horse, and the "heart" of its personality will be the determining factor of a winner. That holds true whether it is a race horse, show horse, of the family horse. Environment and handling plays so much in the outcome of the animal. As far as I know most breed registries do not allow cloning to be registered. I know the Jockey Club and the Arabians don’t.
While cloning is that of a panacea, we know as arabian breeders breeding really close can work both ways, it can either make it better or make it worse. Usually what you gain in one area, you lose in another.
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