I had a great tour of the University of Vienna's reproduction facility yesterday, courtesy of biologist Dr. Sven Budik whom I became acquainted with when I facilitated a shipment of semen from his rare Austrian Warmblood stallion, Furioso Morgana. The semen went to a US breeder who has a Trakehner mare with a complimentary rare bloodline. This is not the Anglo Norman Furioso line that is seen in German bloodlines, but the Austrian Thoroughbred/Arabian line that gave us Ramzes. The breeding resulted in a colt that was gelded, but the mare is back in foal and they are hoping for a filly that Dr. Budik will purchase.
The university produces the semen for the Brandenburg Stud at Neustadt Dosse, Germany, and is conducting important research work in cloning and also in freezing embryos. The day when you will be able to purchase a frozen embryo from Europe for implantation into a donor mare is not that far away! In fact, I have long envisioned this development and have been faithfully paying rent on a frozen embryo domain name for many years, just waiting for the efficiency of freezing, thawing and implanting of embryos to evolve.
Dr. Budik answered a question for me about semen produced by clones. According to him, there should be no problem with the semen produced by clones or with horses produced from the semen, even though cloned animals themselves can have health and lifespan issues.