Idea To Clone Cigar May Go Up In Smoke Racing Officials Cool To Idea Of Experiment

The cloning of Cigar might be an “interesting experiment,” says the man whose racing colors Cigar carried so grandly in two Horse of the Year campaigns.

“If somebody who is qualified wants to come and get a patch off him it would be all right,” Allen Paulson said.

Paulson, speaking to The Associated Press from California on Thursday, had been looking forward to racing and watching others campaign Cigar’s offspring.

However, the 7-year-old horse has been a dud at stud and might be sterile. Paulson said Cigar has mated with 40 mares, and none was in foal.

In any event, Paulson certainly is not counting on a cloned Cigar. And even if science should succeed in such a venture, the racing authorities would intervene.

“I don’t think The Jockey Club would allow cloning because it doesn’t allow artificial insemination,” Paulson said.

The Jockey Club, which registers American thoroughbreds and sets rules for breeding and racing, confirmed his suspicion.

“The rules of registration into the American Stud Book are quite clear and state ‘to be eligible for registration a foal must be a result of a stallion’s natural service with a broodmare,”’ said James Peden, vice president for corporation communications for The Jockey Club.

“This regulation specifically excludes artificial insemination or embryo transfer, and I expect the stewards of The Jockey Club to add the words ‘cloning by any means.”’

Paulson says the notion of a cloned Cigar is not his idea.

“I didn’t start this,” he said. “I got a call from Roger Field, who asked me about cloning Cigar. I said it might be an interesting experiment.”

Field is the health and science writer for the New York Post, which ran the Cigar-cloning story on the front page in Thursday’s early editions.

Whether the cloning of Cigar or any other thoroughbred horse ever takes place remains to be seen.

Scientists in Scotland, who successfully cloned a sheep, told the Post they don’t know when, if ever, a horse could be cloned.

“It’s been done once in sheep, and whether it’s transferable to other species, we don’t know yet,” said Dr. Harry Griffin of the Roslin Institute. “Other attempts … will be in cattle and then probably in pigs.”

Dr. James Stewart of the American Association of Equine Practitioners told the newspaper there might be problems with a cloned horse’s offspring.

“When the clones start to breed, they’ll bring out recessive traits,” Stewart said. “You’ll open some problems you don’t want to think about.”

What appears in store for Cigar is a life of leisure at Paulson’s Brookside Farm at Versailles, Ky.