OUR TENNESSEE WALKING HORSES STILL NEED HELP

You may recall that in November there was news that Tennessee Walking Horses would finally be freed from the stacks and chains that transform their graceful natural gait into a painful lurch and make our beloved horses sore.

Their delivery from pain was promised by new U.S. Department of Agriculture rules to upgrade Horse Protection Act regulations. Those new rules would have banned devices that contribute to horse soring, the practice of deliberately injuring a horse’s legs and hooves to force the artificial “big lick,” according to the Humane Society of the United States — an organization that has fought for reform in the walking horse industry for more than a decade.

Well, forget that.

The nationwide campaign to end horse soring came close, but the Humane Society says a failure of Federal Register personnel to properly publish the new USDA rule before President Barack Obama’s term ended left the new rule vulnerable to a subsequent decision by the Trump administration to put a freeze all pending rules. The new rules went to limbo-land.

Then the USDA, with leadership in flux, withdrew the rules. Never mind that the rules had been supported by a bipartisan group of Congress members (though not ours).

Horse lovers and the Humane Society aren’t giving up, however.

Last week, “in a show of legislative horsepower,” a new bill to bring an end to soring with essentially the same rules was put forth, according to Humane Society officials.

U.S. Reps. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., introduced the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, with nearly half of the lawmakers in the U.S. House joining them. The bill would close loopholes in the almost 50-year-old Horse Protection Act that have enabled the cruelty of horse soring to persist.

Among their supporters is Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., along with more than 200 other co-sponsors — a level of support for bill introduction that is very rare in Congress.

Of course, we’ve been here before. Several times, as a matter of fact. This bill is identical to the bill of the same name introduced two years ago. But that bill was bottled up in committees, thanks to industry-friendly lawmakers from Kentucky and Tennessee.

Meanwhile, the Trump USDA also removed thousands of Animal Welfare Act and Horse Protection Act inspection reports — which are public record — from its website, and a pro-soring coalition reintroduced its own bill that masquerades as reform.

Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais’ “Horse Protection Amendments Act” is a smokescreen bill that is endorsed by the Walking Horse industry. Previous Senate iterations of this bill were sponsored by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

Soring turns beautiful, athletic walking horses with a smooth, natural and somewhat arched gait into horses that lurch around a show ring with little resemblance to the fluid gait of our champion animals from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s.

The Chattanooga region should stand up for the newest Past Act (as we did for the last one) and make our representatives and senators know we want Tennessee walking horses protected. After all, we have had a starring role in the reform effort. Our own federal courthouse is where one-time Walking Horse Trainer of the Year Jackie McConnell and some of his stablehands pleaded guilty in 2013 on charges of abusing horses in the name of “training them” to step higher.

Industry voices claim the soring abuse has been limited to just a few “bad apples” trying to make it to the big time, but in 2012, the country was shocked by video on prime-time news showing McConnell and his hired hands soring and beating horses. Many in the walking horse industry knew McConnell’s barn had been raided by federal agents during the 2011 Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration event in Shelbyville. What they didn’t know until the video debuted was that the Humane Society of the United States had hidden-camera footage of the abuse.

In an apology video that McConnell made as a condition of his probation, he acknowledged that soring abuse is widespread in the industry.

The horse industry and its supporters are strong and moneyed. Over the years, they have successfully thwarted reform efforts.

Let’s rise up to fight them. Once and for all, let’s protect these horses.

ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO This is a horse whose legs had been slathered with caustic chemicals and wrapped tightly to cook the chemicals into its flesh and cause extreme pain — all to produce the “big lick.”