Game Of Clones

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190 – July, 2025

By Caroline Coile

What if the ring was–one day–full of clones of a previous top dog? It’s not totally a crazy question. Argentina’s top polo player, Adolfo Cambiaso, has been known to play entire matches on as many as six clones of Cuartetera, a mare previously honored as the best polo horse in history. Is this legal? Yes. Is it fair? I guess. Is it widespread? Yes and no. Should it happen in dogs?

Polo ponies are the best-known cloned horses, but they’re far from the only performance-oriented ones. Whether clones are allowed to compete, or even be registered, depends heavily on the sport and the registry. The Jockey Club doesn’t even allow Thoroughbreds born of AI to be registered, and certainly no clones. But other horse sports including endurance racing, dressage, show jumping, eventing, cutting, and carriage horse all allow clones.

In many sports, most cloned horses never go into competition, but are used solely for breeding. This is especially true for clones of gelded horses whose clones can take their place as sires. Certainly more than one dog person would love to take advantage of such an opportunity when a winning dog goes prematurely and inexplicably sterile. And even more so, who amongst us would not love to have one of our heart dogs again by our side?

The AKC and Clones

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190 – July, 2025

Short URL: http://caninechronicle.com/?p=332579

Posted by AnthonyA on Jul 15 2025. Filed under Current Articles, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.