As was reported earlier today, Pieraz, the two-time World Champion endurance gelding owned by Valerie Kanavy of Virginia, was successfully cloned in Italy by Eric Palmer,DVM of the Italian laboratory LTR-CIZ, in collaboration with Cryozootech. The cloned colt, named Pieraz-Cryozootech-Stallion, will be used for breeding only.

Kanavy, who has breeding rights to the clone, stated, “Although he should look like Cash (the barn name for Pieraz), we don’t know all the health issues. What Cash accomplished was partly because of his training. Were he (Cash) still a stallion, his sperm would have the same DNA (as the clone) and when combined with a mare, there would be a real good chance that you would get a capable foal. We won’t know those answers for maybe 10 or 15 years.

“When they started doing artificial insemination, which led to collecting semen and shipping the across the country, it changed the whole complexity of breeding (as did in vitro fertilization),” Kanavy stated. “Now, unless you own a Thoroughbred, you don’t have to haul a mare across the country; you fly the semen to the mare. The possibilities of cloning are exciting!”

Pieraz is only the second horse to be cloned successfully. The first clone, Prometea (born in 2002), was developed using the same technique developed by the Italian laboratory LTR-CIZ, and the project was lead by Cesare Galli, DVM. Three mules have been cloned at the University of Idaho