In a world which is changing at a frightening rate, technology is the buzz word! When the discussion on frozen semen and artificial insemination first began, people were against it for moral and ethical reasons - the racing industry refused (and still refuses)to accept this method of breeding.

The performance industry (dressage, showjumping and eventing) embraced this method of breeding as it opened the door for many breeders to use the best stallions from anywhere in the world. Breeders were no longer restricted to the "stallion down the road who would jump their mare"!

The frozen semen has allowed breeders in countries such as New Zealand and Australia to access the best stallion lines, which previously they were unable to breed with and this has improved the quality of purpose bred horses.

But now the stakes have been raised - cloning has entered the equation! Is this a good thing? That is for people to decide for themselves once they have seen all the facts and the results of cloning.

Suddenly geldings can be reproduced as stallions - will they have the same ability and will to win? Only time will answer that question but in the meantime, once these young "DNA identical" colts become adult stallions will people flock to breed with them thus narrowing the gene pool?

One also has to ask the question about why these horses were gelded in the first place and will cloning them as stallions perhaps will perhaps validate why the originals were gelded themselves?

All these questions will not be answered for some years to come............................

Having said all this Cryozootech have announced the arrival of Hugo Simon's superstar FRH ET. This horse was gelded at 3 years of age. ET, now 20 years of age won all major show jumping competitions, winning the World Cup Final twice, and holding the World Number 1 ranking for 3 years in a row.

ET was gelded as when he was born he did not fit the standard of the Hanover Region in which he was born - he was considered too light! So a wonderful horses with much to give to the breeders was lost.

It was in September 2003 that Hugo Simon and the founder of the French company Cryozootech, Eric Palmer, decided that ET should have offspring. A skin biopsy was carried out on ET who, at the time was still competing in International competition. ET's cloning process was started in collaboration with the Texas University, who had already participated with the production of Quidam de Revel's clone.

On June 2nd, 2006 the ET Cryozootech Stallion was born. Like his father he has two white socks on his hind legs but the face markings are quite different as seen in the picture below which shows ET on the left and his cloned son on the left.

The DNA tests carried out by the official laboratory, LABOGENA, have shown the same identical genetic content.

Leon Melchior of Zangersheide Stud have accepted cloning giving it 100% support. The Stud-book Zangersheide will be registering the clones within this most influential and important studbook for performance horses.

ET Cryozootech-Stallion will be standing in France at Cryozootech's stud and he will do some small numbers of coverings in his second year and will progress to standing fully at stud after his third birthday.

So 2009 will see the first generation of foals fathered by ET Cryozootech-Stallion and from then on time will tell whether this is the way of the future for the breeding of performance horses.

As we understand it, these cloned stallions are for breeding purposes and there is no talk, at this stage, of these horses becoming performance horses.

Also expected this summer is the birth of Calvaro V's first clone and next year (2007) will see the birth of Dressage great, Rusty's first clone.

Cryozootech also have from around the world, orders for seven clones of performance horses, on behalf of their owners and in total they have a genetic bank of the cells of 49 horses.

No doubt the debate about cloning is already being held around many dining tables around the world - some will be for it and some will be against it - but whatever the opinions of the many breeders, owners and riders, cloning is now a reality!

Pictured left ET Cryozootech-Stallion at one month old with his surrogate mother.

His back socks match those of his famous father even if ET's blaze and unusual dot haven't come through to baby son.

Pictured below - in his first 2 hours of life this little fellow looks alert but would have no idea just how important his birth is.

The racing industry have not accepted artificial breeding by way of collection and so there is no doubt that they will also reject cloning but the performance horse industry will no doubt want more and more horses cloned - but the cost, which at the moment stands around euro350,000, will mean that it will only be available to the very wealthy.

Cryozootech are trying to make it more accessible by setting up syndicates with as many as 200 shareholders per cloning and perhaps the breeders will see this as a viable way of breeding to gelded superstars.......but I suspect it will be many years before the costs become so reasonable that people will be cloning their "old favourites" for sentimental reasons.