Tennessee Walking Horse Stakeholders, Animal Protection Organizations Announce Historic Effort to End Abusive Practice of HORSE Soring

​Nashville, TN (Nov. 12, 2020) — Animal Wellness Action, Animal Wellness Foundation, Center for a Humane Economy, Horses For Life Foundation, American Horse Protection Society and key stakeholders in the Tennessee Walking Horse industry announced a historic effort that seeks to end soring, protect the Tennessee Walking Horse and the breed, and preserve a show horse that the public will applaud.  These key players have agreed to support legislation to ban action devices and tail braces, to dramatically reduce the size of the shoe, and to establish additional penalties for horse soring.

The Horse Protection Act (HPA) of 1970 authored by the late U.S. Senators Joe Tydings, D-MD, and Howard Baker, R-Tenn., was enacted to stamp out soring but left loopholes that have allowed the practice to persist. Over the past eight years more than 20 pieces of legislation and amendments to the HPA have been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate geared at combating the painful practices of soring – the intentional infliction of pain to horses’ feet to achieve an unnatural high-step that trainers utilize to cheat and avert proper training practices. Not a single measure has been enacted, leaving a 50-year-old statute to govern management of regulated horse shows.

​​​The U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings Memorial Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R. 693/ S. 1007 (named only Prevent All Soring Tactics in the Senate) passed the U.S. House in July 2019 but is stalled in the U.S. Senate, with no reasonable prospects of that circumstance changing.

​This is the ninth rendition of the bill since 2012, and the Senate has never taken up the bill on the floor. ​​The Horse Protection Amendments Act, H.R. 1157/S. 1455, introduced on seven occasions in either the House or Senate, and supported by the Tennessee Walking Horse industry, has also not advanced. Even attempts to finalize regulations to end soring have long-failed at every turn.

Points of Agreement these Stakeholders Seek to Achieve in Compromise Legislation:

• Establishing new and additional penalties for horse soring.
• Eliminating of chains and action devices utilized to exacerbate pain derived from soring.
• Reducing the size of large, stacked shoes (currently 4.5-8 inches in height) to 1.5 inches at the toe and 2.5 inches in height (the same as other breeds that have shoe assemblies).
• Banning the use of tungsten, lead, or other heavy elements or composites in the shoe, and a ban on the use of metal bands to affix a heavy shoe to the hoof.
• Eliminating tail braces and tail docking (currently allowed and continuing in other breeds).
• Banning the possession of caustic chemicals and devices utilized in the soring process.
• Upgrading penalties for violators of the HPA.
• Creating a new organization that will impose immediate penalties and fines on violators of the HPA while still allowing the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture and U.S. Dept. of Justice to impose fines and penalties through Federal prosecution.
• Establishing an inspection program that parallels favors objective, science-based testing methods, as used by other breeds that conduct in-house testing.
• Employing independent inspectors that are licensed and certified by the USDA.
• Limiting the application of the legislation to Tennessee Walking, Racking and Spotted Saddle Horse.

Additional points of clarification

• The bill is being adjusted to reflect the views of additional stakeholders.
• The prohibition of action devices and tail braces, and limitation on the size of the shoe assembly, are limited to the Tennessee Walking, Racking and Spotted Saddle Horses.
• This compromise has a wider range of reforms than the PAST Act
• The shoe assembly permitted is no larger than the limited packages used in some other show breeds and that are not subject to inspection.

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HOW TO HELP END HORSE SORING

Contact your two U.S. Senators and ask them to support the amendments made to the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, S.1007. With the proposed revisions to the bill, we can successfully pass this legislation into federal law. Please raise your voice for the horses today! 

STOP SORING

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