Fick said the Jockey Club and the Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation, which supports equine research, have conducted no studies of equine cloning. Nor does the industry consider doing so a productive use of its resources, he said.

“I’ve never once heard it suggested that cloning would be a way to solve some of our problems,” he said. “The overwhelming feeling is it would create myriad problems, far more than it would solve.”

Dan Rosenberg, president of Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., a high-end breeding operation that stands such stallions as Seattle Slew, Silver Charm and Smarty Jones, said cloning would remove the joy of “putting together a puzzle … and trying to put together the perfect animal” by arranging matings between stallions and mares with complementary strengths.

“Once you have a superior animal and all you’re doing is making Xeroxes, where’s the fun in that?”  he said.

Likewise, he said he couldn’t imagine it would be as satisfying for racing fans to watch “a race where every horse is a Seattle Slew, not a son of Seattle Slew but Seattle Slew himself.  … How much fun would it be to watch a basketball game with 10 Michael Jordans? Who would watch the Masters if there were a dozen Tiger Woods playing?”

University of Idaho/Phil Schofield Cloned mules Idaho Star, far left, and Idah Gem, at right, mix it up in the Humboldt Futurity in Winnemucca, Nev., on June 4, 2006. Idaho Gem finished fourth and Idaho Star finished seventh of eight starters in the race, the first athletic contest involving cloned animals.

Although the interest such hypothetical matchups would generate is an unknown, a trio of cloned mules created by a University of Idaho team starting in 2003 demonstrated that public interest in clone competition is keen, at least as long as it remains a novelty.

An estimated 1,000 people turned out on June  5, 2006, to watch two cloned mules compete in the Humboldt Futurity in Winnemucca, Nev., a contest that was billed as the first race between cloned animals. One of the clones — Idaho Gem — finished third while his identical twin, Idaho Star, finished seventh in the field of eight. 

University of Idaho/Bill Loftus University of Idaho researcher Dirk Vanderwall poses with the cloned mule Idaho Gem.

The development of the clones debunks the idea that DNA duplicates look and behave alike and have the same abilities, said Dirk Vanderwall, a professor of animal and veterinary science at the university and a member of the team that cloned the mules.

Idaho Gem proved the better racetrack performer, and has racked up two wins this year, he said. Idaho Star suffered an injury and required surgery on his fetlock, while the third mule, Utah Pioneer, never kicked it in.

“He went into race training, but the feeling was that he just wasn’t going to cut it as a racing mule,” Vanderwall said. “He has returned to the university campus and is just hanging out.”

But the mules’ biggest impact may have been on the people who have turned out to see them, Vanderwall said.

“We felt it was important for the general public to come and see cloned animals and come talk to the people involved with the technology … to have an opportunity to learn, express concerns and be able to voice their perspective,” he said. “Is this a technology that they, at a personal level, feel should or should not be pursued? “

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