Cruising being honored at the Dublin Horse Show in August 2014.
Two clones from the famed late stallion, Cruising, will be made available to Irish Sport Horse breeders this year as the first equine clones in Ireland, Horse Sport Ireland announced today. Cruising Arish and Cruising Encore were born in 2012 and represent successful efforts to use Cruising’s DNA to produce identical bloodlines.
Cruising’s owner, Mary McCann, had been open to the idea of cloning in the past, but the prohibitive cost prevented her from moving forward. After a U.S. company approached her in 2010, offering to take the DNA samples for free, she elected to go ahead and attempt the cloning process.
Damian McDonald, CEO of Horse Sport Ireland, said that the rules of the Irish Horse Studbook have been altered in recent years in order to permit the registration of clones after the FEI began allowing clones to complete.
The two colts carry a hefty price tag — €100,000 ($153, 949USD at current rates) each — but the experiment will carry the eyes of the world as they enter the breeding ranks, following in Cruising’s footsteps. Both will be available to Irish Sport Horse breeders this year, according to Horse Sport Ireland.
Cruising (Sea Crest x Mullacrew) was a leading sporthorse sire up until his death in September of last year, ranking fifth in the worldwide rankings in 2013 for eventing stallions. He was the only Irish stallion to earn a five-star rating for his offspring in both the eventing and show jumping disciplines.
This is a unique attempt to preserve one of the greatest sporthorse bloodlines in the world, and we’ll be following these foals closely as more information becomes available.
[Two Clones from Cruising DNA]
[Horse Sport Ireland Comments on Cruising Cloning]
