Federal and local inspectors issued nearly twice as many soring violations at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration as in the 2013 show, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture report released this week.

A group of largely USDA monitors found 219 violations of the Horse Protection Act during the 11-day competition in Shelbyville. Those figures come after years when fewer violations — including last year’s low of 110 — were identified at the championship event.

The jump in violations comes as the Tennessee Walking Horse industry continues to writhe over accusations of widespread soring, which happens when a horse’s legs are hurt intentionally to exaggerate the high gait for which the breed is known. While industry reformers call for a federal law they say would eliminate the major causes of abuse, others say more objective testing would weed out the industry’s worst trainers and owners.

The report said those apparent signs of soring disqualified 166 competitors during the event — 15.4 percent of all of the horses inspected. [Click Here to read full USDA report]

The vast majority of the violations and disqualifications developed from horses that had signs of a banned substance on them or through the industry’s scar rule, which prohibits horses with past signs of soring from being shown. More than 50 percent of the 389 horses inspected at the Celebration by USDA officials showed signs of soring, the federal report said.

Celebration CEO Mike Inman questioned the difference shown from this year’s figures, saying that federal officials enforced the scar rule differently than in years past. He said that using fewer subjective ways to monitor a horse would bring more consistent inspection results.

“We’ve had the same horses and the same inspectors for years,” Inman said. “The only thing that’s changed is the interpretation.”

Officials with the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said no inspection procedures were altered during the Celebration, department spokeswoman Tanya Espinosa said.

Instead, she said, inspectors were using more advanced technology to identify sored horses and penalize their trainers. This year, thermal imaging was used to better recognize abnormal temperatures that can show signs of abuse.

“Soring practices are always evolving and require APHIS to incorporate state of the art technology to capture soring techniques that may not be visible to the naked eye,” Espinosa said in an email.

She did not respond to additional questions about whether the technology used was tied to this year’s rise in violations.

Call for legislation

Because of the technology present, Dane slammed the calls for more objective testing by Celebration officials.

“They ask for science, and when they don’t like the results, they object,” Dane said. He cited the number of violations in repeating his call for Congress to approve the Prevent All Soring Tactics Act, which would ban the chains and special pads tied to the most competitive levels of the industry.

Inman supported alternative legislation that he said would strengthen current laws and provide more objective ways to evaluate a horse and eliminate the field’s worst abusers.

“The PAST Act seeks to eliminate soring by eliminating the breed,” Inman said.

Only one of the USDA violations was issued against a flatshod horse, a performance category that doesn’t use padded shoes or other devices. Because multiple violations could be issued to a horse, the number of violations could differ from the number of disqualifications, the report said.

Source: The Tennessean

Following the announcement of the new board of directors of the Walking Horse Trainers Association, The Humane Society of the United States released research into the board members’ past violations of the federal Horse Protection Act.

The act outlaws “soring,” the abusive methods used to force Tennessee walking show horses and other related breeds to perform an unnatural high-stepping gait for competitions. A review of records of Horse Protection Act violations turned up 116 total citations for soring and related offenses for the seven-person board. One board member had only one violation; one has been cited for violating the act 39 times. The majority of these citations never led to meaningful penalties.

Keith Dane, vice president of equine protection for The HSUS, said: “It’s stunning that with the eyes of the world upon them, trainers among the ‘Big Lick’ crowd continue to put perpetrators of soring into leadership positions. Their vision for the breed’s future seems to be the status quo of abuse and corruption that has plagued it for decades. We envision a sound and thriving future for these horses, but that will require Congress to act.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released results from its 2013 testing of show horses’ legs for illegal substances used to sore horses or hide the evidence of soring. More than half of the limited number of samples USDA was able to test were found positive in violation of the Horse Protection Act, a result that confirms the ongoing pattern of noncompliance within this faction of the industry. Of the 314 samples taken by the USDA at 17 shows, 195 were positive for illegal foreign substances, including soring, masking and numbing agents. The USDA regularly issues letters of warning based on these violations, which indicate that evidence exists that horses were exposed to prohibited substances, but that the case was never prosecuted by USDA. Five of the seven Walking Horse Trainers Association board members have also received warning letters.

USDA only inspects for soring violations at a small percentage of horse shows, while industry-run organizations have for decades been allowed to self-regulate – thus furthering a widespread industry tolerance for soring.

The Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R.1518 / S.1406, is advancing through Congress to amend the Horse Protection Act to end the failed self-policing scheme. The legislation would also ban the devices associated with soring, and strengthen penalties for violators.

The Walking Horse Trainers Association licenses walking horse trainers, names the “Trainer of the Year,” and names the winners of the industry’s Riders Cup award (the 2012 winner of which has a history of 47 citations for soring and related issues).

Until his arrest in April on felony animal cruelty charges stemming from suspicions of soring, walking horse trainer Larry Wheelon was an active director of the group, sitting on its ethics board.

Wheelon, two of his employees and a farrier were indicted last month by a Tennessee grand jury on 15 felony counts of aggravated cruelty to livestock and conspiracy.

Summary of findings:

• At least 117 known citations for violations of the Horse Protection Act have been issued to members of the 2014 Walking Horse Trainers Association board of directors, by either the USDA or Horse Industry Organization inspectors.
  • W.H.T.A. Board HPA Citation Tallies
    • Mickey McCormick: 24 known citations
    • David Landrum: 6 known citations
    • Bill Cantrell: 10 known citations
    • Edgar Abernathy: 9 known citations
    • Jeff Green: 28 known citations
    • Link Webb: 39 known citations
    • Ross Campbell: 1 known citation
  • Of these citations, only 40 resulted in the violator being suspended from the show circuit. 25 of these suspensions were for a mere two weeks, and there were only five one-year suspensions and five eight-month suspensions.
• In 2013, USDA tested 314 samples for illegal foreign substances from 17 horse shows.
  • 195 of the samples, or 62 percent, were found positive for illegal foreign substances including soring, masking, and numbing agents.
  • Of the samples testing positive for illegal substances, 92 percent were found positive for soring agents, 54 percent were found positive for masking agents, and 16 percent were found positive for numbing agents

Source: HSUS

Ethics experts said that the Whitfields could be violating House rules through their joint lobbying for legislation, although these experts cautioned that it isn’t a cut-and-dried case.

“If it were Boeing and they were doing this, it would be a really big deal,” said Melanie Sloan, head of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. While Sloan applauded the Whitfields for disclosing their activities — something that has been one of the major problems in other ethics cases — she said the joint lobbying of members and staffers is troubling.

“I can’t see a flat-out ethics violation, but I can certainly see it creates an appearance problem, and it would seem like the better course would be for them not to be lobbying together; that seems inappropriate to me,” Sloan said.

Veteran ethics lawyer Stanley Brand said the activity does raise questions because lawmakers aren’t supposed to gain personal benefit from their official duties.

“It’s not that easy to get from those general standards to a violation,” Brand said. “There have been cases before where spouses have been registered lobbyists and their husbands or wives are on committees where those companies have interest and that’s never been enough to get you to a violation.”

Whitfield is hardly alone when it comes to lawmakers with relatives who lobby. Dozens of congressional relatives are registered lobbyists, and oftentimes, lawmakers with family ties on issues weigh in on legislative proposals. Congress cracked down on ethics reforms in 2007, banning spouses from lobbying a member’s personal office staff and the lawmaker. Other lawmakers whose relatives have lobbied include: the wife of Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) as a lobbyist at Kraft Foods and Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.), whose father — former Rep. Bud Shuster — served as a contract lobbyist.

Humane Society President and CEO Wayne Pacelle defended Harriman-Whitfield’s involvement pushing the horse legislation.

“I think sometimes when folks look at issues like this, they nitpick on it as a conflict of interest and I just want to say, No. 1, there is a real difference in working for a coal company or an oil company or any big business, pharmaceutical company and working for a nonprofit organization where there is no financial incentive to gain as an institution,” Pacelle said. “The track record of both Connie and Ed is deep involvement in animal welfare far preceding Connie’s involvement in the Humane Society. She came to the Humane Society because she was already very, very involved on these issues personally.”

Further, Pacelle said that he meets with Whitfield to discuss legislative issues, not Harriman-Whitfield. Pacelle said he didn’t see anything wrong with Whitfield and his wife personally lobbying his colleagues together on the issue of animal cruelty.

“It’d be a shame if our society didn’t allow spouses to advocate for ending poverty in the world, or advancing other core values of our society. I’m not sure what she’s supposed to do, just be mute on these issues with his colleagues,” Pacelle said.

Harriman-Whitfield has a history of advocating against animal cruelty long before joining the Humane Society Legislative Fund in 2007. As assistant secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks for the Department of the Interior under President George H.W. Bush, Harriman-Whitfield is credited with playing a major role in instituting the U.S. and worldwide ban on the elephant ivory trade.

Harriman-Whitfield now serves as senior policy adviser for the Humane Society Legislative Fund and has been engaged in federal lobbying since early 2011. During this two-year period, the HSLF spent $90,000 on in-house lobbying activities, according to Senate lobbying disclosure reports. An outside lobbying firm billed the organization an additional $60,000 so far this year, according to another report.

Whitfield’s annual financial disclosure report does not include his wife’s compensation from the Humane Society.

For his part, Whitfield said his standing with the Humane Society hasn’t always been good, although he provided POLITICO with a long list of legislation he has offered dealing with animal welfare during his time in Congress.

“Sometimes I’ve had a good record with them and sometimes I have not had a good record with them, but I’ve been involved in a multitude of issues, so from my perspective there absolutely is no violation of ethics laws and if someone thinks there is they can file a complaint,” Whitfield said, noting that he has a 62 percent rating in the group’s 2013 midterm score card.

Source: Politico by John Bresnahan and Anna Palmer