Genetic Tools Create Super Polo Ponies

you're listening to an article from horse canada.com. genetic tools create super polo ponies by: kim izzo |. polo-loving argentina is looking to continue to dominate the sport thanks to scientific advances that allow “editing” a top mare’s genes into unborn foals. according to reuters, the mare is an award-winning mount named polo pureza who was born in 1988 and won 14 opens during her long career. scientists at kheiron, an argentine biotech firm, used a procedure known as crispr-cas9 to create these genetically edited horses. the five foals were born last fall:. advertisement scroll to continue with content “we design their genome before they are born,” gabriel vichera, co-founder and scientific director of kheiron told reuters. “we do this by using the so-called genetic scissors techniques, which are molecular tools that allow us to go to any region of the genome, make a precise cut and be able to make a change in that genome.”. our sister magazine horse sport reported on this type of gene editing from kheiron in show jumping horses in 2018. in the recent polo pony experiment, researchers used the genes from polo pureza (which translates to purity polo) for the five foals, specifically editing the genes to “increase explosive speed while keeping the champion horse’s other qualities.”. how were scientists able to be so accurate in terms of increasing speed? “there are certain muscle fibers that give it more explosiveness, a faster contraction, and the animal can have this greater explosive speed,” vichera explained. she also indicated that it was their ambition to incorporate these genes “into a single generation in a precise manner.”. when asked if such genetic manipulation was legal under sport governing bodies or even good sportsmanship, she responded that the horses comply with current regulations and “do not count as genetic doping or genetically modified organisms.”. “we are not inventing anything artificial, but rather we are taking that natural sequence and introducing it into another natural horse, which is what nature does, but we do it faster and more targeted,” vichera added. check out a video about the aaccp hall of fame mare polo pureza here.