Polo is already known for its "frenetic pace," but in Argentina, the sport is about to become "even quicker," said The Times of London. Scientists in the polo-obsessed nation have produced the world's first genetically edited horses, modifying DNA from a champion mare using a technique called CRISPR to increase "explosive speed" in her offspring.
The five foals, born in October and November, have mostly the same genes as their award-winning mother, Polo Pureza, and should inherit her natural agility, according to the biotech firm behind the project. But having had a specific gene associated with sprinting tweaked, they are engineered to one day outrun her. This "futuristic experiment" dates back to 2006, a decade after the birth of Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal, said The Washington Post.
When world-renowned polo player Adolfo Cambiaso's "beloved stallion," Aiken Cura, "limped off the field and it became clear that the horse was in his final days," Cambiaso decided to "take a gamble" by asking a vet to save some of the horse's skin cells, the Post said. The polo pro then had a Texas laboratory clone Aiken Cura and later repeated the process with his champion mare, Dolfina Cuartetera.
But what began as an "effort to immortalize those champions" has grown into a "massive multimillion-dollar industry," the Post said. In 2016, one Argentinian player rode six horses cloned from the same mare. The South American nation's cloning business has "fundamentally transformed" the sport of polo, but the long-term possibilities — and risks — are "yet to be fully understood." | 
