Cloned Mule Competes At Alameda Fair

July 7 - KGO (KGO) -- Not your ordinary day at the Alameda County Fair. Yes, you had your blue ribbon cows and your winning rabbits, but it was a mule that stole the show. Not just any mule, the first ever cloned mule, and he competed in a race.

The temperature reached well above 90 degrees in Pleasanton. It seemed like any other July afternoon at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. Until, an out-of-towner trotted in. Idaho Gem is a special mule -- the first ever cloned.

Here's "who done it," Gordon Woods, a scientist from the University of Idaho.

Gordon Woods, University of Idaho: "Mules are sterile hybrids, that's correct. People ask why would you clone a mule and the funny answer to that is they can't reproduce, so we decided to give them a hand."

To refresh your memory, mules are created by crossing a male donkey with a female horse. But in this case, Idaho Gem was cloned by taking skin cells from a mule and inserting its DNA into an egg of a horse.

Well, you can imagine what the folks in Pleasanton think about that.

Comments ranged from, "A little bit unnatural to me," to "The clone mule? I didn't know there was a cloned mule," and "I'll come out when they clone a thoroughbred."

On a more serious note, scientists say mule cloning can help scientists take a new approach to cancer research.

Gordon Woods: "Horses have only a eight-percent cancer mortality compared to a 24-percent cancer mortality in humans."

But today, Dr. Woods' mind was Idaho Gem's performance on the track. Number 3 Idaho Gem was expected to show. Idaho Gem finished a disappointing fourth.

Ruby Thomas is his trainer. She says cloned or not cloned, she still hears the same old mule jokes.

Ruby Thomas, trainer: "But no, he's not stubborn. He's very good to be around. He's a pet."

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