World's first gene-edited horses are shaking up the genteel sport of polo

By Leila Miller

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -They look like ordinary foals, docile with honey brown coats and white facial patches, content to spend their days munching alfalfa in a cordoned-off pasture in rural Buenos Aires province.

But these five 10-month-olds are the world’s first genetically edited horses: cloned copies of a prize-winning horse named Polo Pureza, or Polo Purity, with a single DNA sequence inserted using CRISPR technology with the aim of producing explosive speed.

Kheiron Biotech, the Argentine company that created the horses, says gene-editing has the potential to revolutionize horse breeding.

While cloning creates a genetically identical copy, CRISPR functions as a sort of genetic scissors to cut and customize DNA.

The company, which specializes in equine cloning, us