Cloning of race or high-bred horses has been a practice in several countries since the early 2000s, particularly for genetic improvement.
In China, the horse Guang Guang, born last June from a surrogate mother and developed in the “Synogen” laboratory in Beijing, is a clone of a horse imported from Germany.
This black animal is the first “warm-blooded” horse born in China to be officially approved by the China Equestrian Industry Federation.
The classification of “warm-blooded” generally applies to light horse breeds with a lively temperament.
Equestrian sports, especially show jumping, have developed in China in recent years. However, the shortage of high-performance horses and the delay in breeding technology is limiting this growth.
“I spoke with (Chinese) riders participating in the Olympic Games. Each of them has more than one horse, usually two or three. Each horse costs between a few million and ten million yuan,” said Mi Jidong, head of Synogen Laboratories, told AFP. It amounts to about one and a half million dollars.
“Cloning can help bring down the price of breeding and breeding horses,” he added.
The world’s first cloned horse was born in Italy in 2003.
Chinese animal cloning companies have made great progress in recent years, and the technologies are ripe for use on sheep, cows, pigs, dogs and even cats.
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