Cryozootech and the Chapot family announce the birth of the clone of Gem Twist, the grey thoroughbred gelding three times awarded “Horse of the Year”, double silver medal at Seoul Olympic games, “world Best Horse” at the 1990 World Equestrian Games. This foal will bring to the breeding industry the blood of thoroughbred show jumpers, a very demanded type of stallion.

The thoroughbred Gem Twist was born in 1979. His dam was Coldly Noble, a Thoroughbred racehorse given to the Chapot family by Mrs. Miles Valentine. His sire Good Twist had won with Frank Chapot 21 international classes in the United States and Europe during the 1960’s. Good Twist is from the American “Bonne Nuit” line which produced many horses on the US Team, including Olympians Miss Budweiser (Circus Rose) and Riviera Wonder.

In late 1984, Greg Best, then a relatively unknown 19-year-old kid began to ride the five-year-old and they entered together the grand-prix ranks in early 1987. Six months later they helped the United States Equestrian Team bring home a team silver medal at the Pan American Games. The year 1988 they won the team and individual silver medals at the Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea. Gem earned the title “World’s Best Horse” in 1990 at the World Equestrian Games where he had the fewest faults out of 78 horses in the event’s five preliminary rounds and the fewest in the final four rounds with four different riders.

In 1992 an unlucky slip during the approach to an oxer at the American Gold Cup caused Gem to crash through the jump. While Gem was unharmed, the injury put Greg out of commission for several months. Leslie Howard took over and had instant success with Gem, winning the 1993 Horse of the Year. Gem Twist is the only horse who earned the Horse of the Year honor three times.

While at The Hague for the World Equestrian Games in 1994, Gem developed an infection in his suspensory that put him out of competition for almost a year during which Laura Chapot spent hours each day massaging his muscles and soaking his legs in a whirlpool. Laura became his partner in 1995 and she won her second grand prix with Gem, the $100,000 Autumn Classic in Port Jervis, which, along with several other placings, awarded Laura the 1995 AGA Rookie of the Year title.

Gem won the AGA Championship three times, each time with a different rider. Gem retired during a ceremony in New York’s Madison Square Garden on November 1, 1997. In 2006, Eric Palmer, founder of Cryozootech was looking for exceptionnal champion horses for his cloning project when he learned that Gem was still alive. The horse was exactly what he was looking for: an outstanding horse but without progeny because of early castration, the best candidate for cloning. He contacted Frank and Mary Chapot who immediatly approved the project of making a clone of this outstanding thoroughbred champion. Two years later arrives the clone Gem Twist who will certainly not be castrated. Breeders are looking for thoroughbred stallions to bring more blood in their genetic pool, but they have very little choice of thoroughbred jumping performers. There are very few of them competing at a high level and almost all of them are geldings.

 

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