FROM THE EDITOR

Reproductive TechnologyI have just returned from a recent trip

down through Texas to visit some veterinaryclinics and attend the Superstakes CuttingHorse Event in Fort Worth. During the flightdown, I was reminiscing about the changesthat have occurred during my 30-year careeras an academician. You really feel old whenyou can remember the days before we hadcell phones, laptop computers, Internet, faxmachines, and iPods. Life was a little simplerback in those days. Now, every time I travel, Ihave a laptop with a wireless card plus a cellphone, which allows me to stay in contactwith the office no matter where I travel.

Tremendous changes have also occurred inhow we breed mares. When you visit a repro-ductive center in this day and age, the veteri-nary clinic is usually packed with Equitainersand other cooling boxes that are used forshipping semen, as well as many nitrogentanks that contain hundreds of thousands offrozen sperm. Spending time in the CuttingHorse industry, you also wonder if anyoneever breeds a mare and lets her carry the foalto term. There are numerous large embryo re-cipient stations just in the state of Texas.Veterinarians spend a good portion of theirday either flushing embryos out of mares ortransferring them into recipients. Embryotransfer has certainly become old hat. At onetime, we thought embryo transfer was hightechnology. Now we have not only cooled em-bryos, but also frozen embryos, deep-horn in-semination, oocyte transfer, intracytoplasmicsperm injection, and even cloning.

None of these techniques has createdquite as much stir as the development ofcloning techniques. Several clones have beenborn this spring, and many more are likely tocome in 2007. People seem to be either quiteenthusiastic about cloning or adamantly op-posed to it. Those who are enthused about thetechnique recognize it as a method of pre-serving genetic material and providing a re-placement for their great mare or stallion.Only time will tell whether clients will bepleased with their investment. Others havethe opinion that cloning is “going too far” andthat we should be able to create a betterhorse in the future without having to clonethe ones that are here now.

It is interesting to contemplate: with all ofthe developments in reproductive techniquesthat have occurred in the last 30 years, whatdo the next 30 years hold? More than likely,there will be bright scientists and veterinari-ans who will develop new and better ways ofbreeding horses in the future.

Ed Squires, Editor

234 Journal of Equine Veterinary Science June 2006

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