Horses suffer while rule to end soring languishes

For decades I have had a love for Tennessee walking horses that Elvis and I shared and I carry with me to this day. I have worked for years to advocate for reforms to protect them from soring, which is a cruel practice in which trainers use caustic chemicals, chains, heavy platform shoes and other barbaric methods to inflict pain on the horses’ hooves and legs, forcing them to perform an artificial show ring gait known as the “big lick.”

I have lobbied Congress on the widely supported, bipartisan Prevent All Soring Tactics (“PAST”) Act that has passed twice in the House of Representatives but been blocked from a Senate vote by Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell and other lawmakers from Kentucky and Tennessee.

I have written letters to presidents and secretaries of agriculture, urging that they take administrative action within their power to end soring. I spoke at a public USDA hearing in favor of stronger regulations under the 1970 Horse Protection Act that would ban the use of devices that are integral to soring and end the industry self-policing that the agency’s own inspector general said in a 2010 audit report was a failure and should be abolished.

USDA has not followed through on assurances

Those regulations received support from over 100,000 members of the public, resulting in 2017 in the finalization by Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack

of a rule to implement the regulations.

Heartbreakingly, that rule was withdrawn by the incoming administration and was shelved by Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.

With Vilsack’s return to the agency under the Biden administration, I hoped that he would follow through on his prior work and commitment to ending soring, by implementing the 2017 rule. So in 2021 I wrote him, urging that he do just that.

In response I received a letter from Dr. Betty Goldentyer, now retired deputy administrator of USDA’S Animal Plant Health Inspection Service who told me that putting an end to soring was a “top priority” for her and her colleagues and assured me that in reviewing the data and language used to draft the rule they would move forward with their decision making process “as expeditiously as possible.”

That was over two years ago. In the interim, in a lawsuit filed by the Humane Society of the United States challenging the withdrawal of the 2017 rule, USDA was told by a federal court that the rule was withdrawn illegally, and ordered to either reinstate the rule, move forward with a new rule that it had been promising was imminent, or take steps to withdraw the 2017 rule legally.

Shockingly, USDA chose to do the latter, leaving nothing in its place but the status quo and making no commitment to a timeline for implementation of a new rule.

Such a rule was sent by the agency to President Biden’s Office of Management and Budget, where it has sat since last September – nearly a year!

With Vilsack’s return, I hoped that he would follow through on his prior work to end soring by implementing the 2017 rule

Share your voice with Biden administration

I want to see soring end in my lifetime. But that will take action on the part of government officials who have the power to make it happen – either in USDA, in Congress, or both. It’s shameful that a law passed over half a century ago to protect walking horses and wipe out soring has failed to do so because of lax enforcement and loopholes in the law and its weak underlying regulations, that our government has not found the will to fix. This is a travesty, and totally unacceptable.

I am calling on Secretary Vilsack to reinstate the rule he finalized in 2017 – or if he is determined to withdraw it, to commit in writing to a timeline to finalize and publish a strong new rule. It’s been 13 years since USDA committed to ending the failed system of industry self-policing (as proposed in the 2017 rule), over six years since that rule was finalized (but never implemented) and over two years since the agency’s commitment to me that ending soring was a “top priority.” Meanwhile, thousands of horses have needlessly suffered in silence.

USDA is accepting public comments on its plans to withdraw the 2017 rule. I urge everyone who cares about humane treatment of animals to tell the agency to instead either reinstate the rule or commit to a timeline for implementation of a strong new rule. Go here or visit regulations.gov and search for APHIS-20110009-11190 to comment.

Priscilla Presley is the founder of Elvis Presley Enterprises Inc., an actress, author, entrepreneur and animal activist.