Clone on the Range

Co. Produces Clones From Cutting Horses

from The Associated Press

PURCELL, Okla. - A company that offers horse owners exact duplicates of their animals says it has successfully cloned two top-earning horses.

ViaGen Inc. announced Thursday that two mares had delivered clones of top cutting horses, which are trained to help separate individual animals from cattle herds.

The foals, born at a ranch near Purcell, were doing well, according to the Austin, Texas-based company.

The first cloned horse was born in 2003 in Italy. In 2005, Texas A&M University created the first cloned horse in the United States.

Elaine Hall of Weatherford, Texas, owns one of the horses that was cloned and said the foal is the image of its mother.

"I can already see so many similarities from the original horse, a certain look about the eyes," she said.

A laboratory at the University of California-Davis has confirmed that one of the clones and its offspring share the same genetics. Scientists are working to make the same determination with the second clone.