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Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

knowablemagazine.org

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Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#41

Post by bonesss »

defrost wrote: post #37
madaxe_again wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pedigree is often a scam. I know a peer of the realm who made pretty much his entire fortune on forged horses - he was breeding to make fast horses, but the pedigree was a load of, well, horseshit. All started because he’d bought a stallion who shot blanks. Now it’s all about eight generations deep so he’s safe at this point, as they’re their own pedigree now. Oh, and don’t even get me started on cows. There's a whol…

I can only agree. Hard. It's less about the horse, the speed, the actual genetics - it's all about the process, the appearance, the gate-keeping. Country Clubs for horses (and cows, etc)

At some point moving up the luxury scale the price is less about product and more about buyer psychology.

I can sell a ripped t-shirt, but that same product coming from an upscale exclusive boutique owned by so-and-so’s wife is participation in a whole ecosystem with lots of signalling to other buyers in the same financial strata.

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#42

Post by defrost »

basch wrote: post #38
defrost wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a wee bit of money to be made winning a race, sure. Here's a question though (can vary by country and racing industry), how do the winnings from racing (as a distribution) compare to the earnings from pedigree breeding, stud fees, sperm straw sales, etc.? I agree there's room for disruption, just as there is from (say) the iron grip of the US Home Owners Associations and other cartels, but expect a lot of re…

If someone came in and moneyballed the sport with no name horses, wouldn’t their stud fee rise with wins? New lineage would start.

You'd expect so and it's bound to have been done, it's still one of those domains where the establishment (owners, trainers, breeders, jockeys, track associations, etc) is weighted against outsiders.

Money would count, but I dare say it'd need a bit of crafty social engineering running in parallel to crack in.

Caveat: I'm not a horse racing / polo insider - I did some contract work years back and rubbed shoulders with a bunch of millionaire horsey types.

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#43

Post by b112 »

didibus wrote: post #15
apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #11

Humans can likely be cloned too. Imagine 10,000 Albert Einsteins and John von Neumanns working together with modern AI on medical, scientific, and societal issues. Though there could be an Evil Einstein due to upbringing or something.

Don't twin studies mostly show this wouldn't be the case?

[flagged]

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#44

Post by usrusr »

didibus wrote: post #16

The thing is, what if there's an even better horse out there? Once you get on the cloning bandwagon, don't you also lock yourself out of looking/evolving an even better horse?

Looks very much like the only chance of that ever happening now is if someone established a separate league that only allows naturally conceived horses.

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#46

Post by mmustapic »

zzzoom wrote: post #24
allthetime wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is where many of the nazi war doctors who escaped prosecution ended up…

Not as many as the ones that the US snatched in operation paperclip

Exactly, the dog was cloned in the US

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#47

Post by probably_wrong »

apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #11

Humans can likely be cloned too. Imagine 10,000 Albert Einsteins and John von Neumanns working together with modern AI on medical, scientific, and societal issues. Though there could be an Evil Einstein due to upbringing or something.

I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

(quote by Stephen Jay Gould)

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#49

Post by the_real_cher »

acestus5 wrote: post #23
foobar1962 wrote: post #21

Perhaps Polo will end up like competitive sailing with one-design classes based on the clone of horse. "Measurement" would be a blood test for drugs and dna.

cloned horses are good at competitive sailing also?!?

Surprisingly yes!

Re: Field of clones: How horse replicas came to dominate polo

#50

Post by K0balt »

walrus01 wrote: post #6
beau_g wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though we are not yet competitive in the Argentinian Polo clone wars, we are making significant progress - https://www.satyress.com/

This has to be some kind of kink thing. Not judging, just how it looks from first appearances.

Maybe it’s satyr.
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