Horse Soring
Soring involves the intentional infliction of pain to a horse's legs or hooves in order to force the horse to perform an artificial, exaggerated gait. Caustic chemicals—blistering agents like mustard oil, diesel fuel, and kerosene—are applied to the horse's limbs, causing extreme pain and suffering. A particularly egregious form of soring, known as pressure shoeing, involves cutting a horse's hoof almost to the quick and tightly nailing on a shoe, or standing a horse for hours with the sensitive part of his soles on a block or other raised object. This causes excruciating pressure and pain whenever the horse puts weight on the hoof.
The life of a sored horse is filled with fear and pain. While being sored, a horse can be left in their stall for days at a time, with their legs covered in caustic chemicals and plastic wrap to "cook" the chemicals deep into his flesh. In training barns where soring takes place, it is common to see horses lying down in their stalls, moaning in pain. In addition to extreme suffering from being sored and shown, many Tennessee walking horses die at a young age from colic, believed to be caused by the extreme stress placed on them in training and by exposure to the toxic chemicals.
Soring has been a common and widespread practice in the Tennessee walking horse show industry for decades. Today, judges continue to reward the artificial "Big Lick" gait, thus encouraging participants to sore their horses and allowing the cruel practice to persist.
In 1970 Congress enacted the Horse Protection Act (HPA) to make the abusive practice of "soring illegal. Unfortunately, there are many trainers that continue to abuse horses and skirt the law because of various shortcomings in the Horse Protection Act and limited resources from the federal government towards enforcement.
The Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R.961 would finally remove these shortcomings by amending the Horse Protection Act, to end the industry's failed system of self-policing, ban the use of devices implicated in the practice of soring, strengthen penalties, and make other reforms needed to finally end this torture, including requiring meaningful USDA enforcement.
The life of a sored horse is filled with fear and pain. While being sored, a horse can be left in their stall for days at a time, with their legs covered in caustic chemicals and plastic wrap to "cook" the chemicals deep into his flesh. In training barns where soring takes place, it is common to see horses lying down in their stalls, moaning in pain. In addition to extreme suffering from being sored and shown, many Tennessee walking horses die at a young age from colic, believed to be caused by the extreme stress placed on them in training and by exposure to the toxic chemicals.
Soring has been a common and widespread practice in the Tennessee walking horse show industry for decades. Today, judges continue to reward the artificial "Big Lick" gait, thus encouraging participants to sore their horses and allowing the cruel practice to persist.
In 1970 Congress enacted the Horse Protection Act (HPA) to make the abusive practice of "soring illegal. Unfortunately, there are many trainers that continue to abuse horses and skirt the law because of various shortcomings in the Horse Protection Act and limited resources from the federal government towards enforcement.
The Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R.961 would finally remove these shortcomings by amending the Horse Protection Act, to end the industry's failed system of self-policing, ban the use of devices implicated in the practice of soring, strengthen penalties, and make other reforms needed to finally end this torture, including requiring meaningful USDA enforcement.
