Ceilidh

Michael Zey
ith the purpose of preserving the genetic heritage of the champion. Its father, Pieraz, was the winner of the endurance world championships in Den Haag, Netherlands in 1994 and again in Fort Riley, U.S., in 1996. The cloning was done by Italian company, Ltr-Ciz, using the nuclear transfer technique on cells provided by France's Cryozootech. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

CREMONA, Italy (AP) - Italian scientists have reported cloning a horse for the second time, a new foal created from the DNA of a thoroughbred Arabian gelding that was twice world endurance champion.

The foal, named Pieraz-Cryozootech-Stallion, was born Feb. 25, weighed 93 pounds and was pronounced ``in excellent health'' in a statement from scientists at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in the northern Italian city of Cremona, which claimed the cloning was only the second of a horse.

The stallion was cloned from Pieraz, retired to a stable in the United States after winning world endurance championships in 1994 and 1996.

The laboratory said the birth was a breakthrough in that it allowed the preservation of genetic lines of champion thoroughbred geldings by creating exact copies that are able to breed.

``This new approach opens the possibility of conserving the genetic inheritance of exceptional horses whose genetic heritage gets lost because they are castrated,'' the lab said in a statement Thursday.

The Italian scientists used DNA from skin cells taken from the former champion, employing the same technique used in cloning Dolly the sheep in Britain. Dolly was euthanized in 2003 after she contracted a common livestock disease and her cells showed signs of premature aging.

Pieraz-Cryozootech is the second horse cloned at the lab in Cremona. The first, Promotea, was born in May 2003.

The lab said the new cloned horse would not compete, but as a stallion would be able to pass along champion genes.

04/16/05 12:14 EDT
   
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PHOTO: Eric Palmer, founder of Cryozootech, holds a cloned foal named Pieraz-Cryozootech-Stallion in a field near Cremona, Italy, Thursday, April 14, 2005. The foal, born in Feb. 2005, is the first horse clone produced from a castrated endurance champion with the purpose of preserving the genetic heritage of the champion. Its father, Pieraz, was the winner of the endurance world championships in Den Haag, Netherlands in 1994 and again in Fort Riley, U.S., in 1996. The cloning was done by Italian company, Ltr-Ciz, using the nuclear transfer technique on cells provided by France's Cryozootech. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)