Satisfied Horse Owners and Breeders
Elaine Hall and Royal Blue Boon
As her horse Royal Blue Boon neared her 26th birthday, owner Elaine Hall of Weatherford, Texas, considered her options. RBB is the all-time leading producer of cutting horses in the world, with personal lifetime earnings of $381,764 and produce earnings of well over $2.5 million dollars. But her reproductive days are over and she won’t live forever.
So Mrs. Hall decided to have RBB cloned.
“I simply could not imagine not being able to continue to breed this fine animal and improve the genetics of future generations of cutting horses,” she said. “If you don’t stay up with the latest technology, you are going to be left in the dust.”
Using a biopsy of RBB provided by Mrs. Hall’s veterinarian, ViaGen produced a clone that was born to a recipient mare in February 2006. With that, RBB became the first mare to be commercially cloned. Mrs. Hall is happy with the healthy foal.
“When I look at her I see Royal Blue Boon,” she told the Associated Press. “I can already see so many similarities from the original horse, a certain look about the eyes.”
Mrs. Hall plans not to train Boon Too, but to breed her. Milton Bradford of Encore Genetics of Weatherford predicted that Royal Blue Boon Too’s offspring could fetch $100,000 to $150,000 apiece.
Learn more about ViaGen’s gene banking and cloning services.