MULE RACING ENTHUSIAST PLAYED MAJOR ROLE IN RESEARCH
POST FALLS, Idaho – Don Jacklin is a businessman with a passion for mule racing.
His best racer, Taz, inspires that sort of passion in a lot of race fans. Last year, the rivalry between Jacklin’s Taz and Black Ruby, another racing mule, won the TVG television racing channel’s Viewer’s Choice Award for the Top Rivalry in horse racing.
Jacklin, who joined his brothers Doyle and Duane in building Jacklin Seed into a national force in grass seed production, was the major private sponsor of the University of Idaho ^ Utah State University project that cloned the first member of the horse family, a mule.
The cloned foal, born May 4 and named Idaho Gem, is the full brother of Taz.
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey, a jack, crossed with a female horse, a mare. Mules are almost always sterile, although five reports have been verified of female mules producing live foals in the last two decades.
A donkey has 62 chromosomes and a horse 64. A mule has 63. It is that basic genetic difference that is thought to make mules sterile. Cloning, as a result, is the only feasible way for a mule to reproduce.
Jacklin has long supported the work of Dr. Gordon Woods, a University of Idaho professor of animal and veterinary science and a veterinarian. Woods directs the Northwest Equine Reproduction Laboratory on the Moscow campus. Jacklin donated funds to directly support Dr. Dirk Vanderwall, a UI assistant professor of animal and veterinary science. Woods said Vanderwall’s expertise was essential to the project.
In 1994, Jacklin and Woods represented the UI program when it was chosen grand marshal of the Bishop Mule Days Parade in central California. The focus of the program then was using pioneering embryo transfer techniques to produce four siblings within months of each other.
Mule racing is gaining popularity throughout the country, and in particular in the West where it began, Jacklin said.
California race tracks such as Los Alamitas, Pomona and Del Mar have scheduled mule races with strong fan support, including a daily record turnout at one track.
The TVG vote was exciting, Jacklin said, because it showed broader interest.
“They picked up eastern fans who didn’t even know that mule racing existed,” he said. “Seeing the Taz-Black Ruby rivalry attract so much attention was surprising because they were up against the best races, the best horses and the best jockeys in the world.”
That strong will that makes mules famous makes them intense competitors, Jacklin said.
“People were amazed these two mules would compete so hard.”
Mules are fast, although not as fast a thoroughbreds. They can beat some horses like paints, Arabians and Appaloosas but typically run in the middle of the pack for quarter horses.
Mules typically race their best over short distances of 300 to 440 yards.
Jacklin makes clear that he is proud to have been a sponsor of the research that led to the first cloned equine, and proud that it produced a mule.
Jacklin and his brothers were honored by the University of Idaho at its May 17 commencement with honorary doctoral degrees to recognize their contributions to the institution and the state.
The businessmen led the drive to establish the university’s Post Falls Research Park and provided major support for the new Jacklin Science and Technology Building there.
“Even though the animals are important, what this is really about is the opportunity to work with quality people like Gordon Woods, Dirk Vanderwall and other members of the team,” Jacklin said.