Cruel ‘Big Lick’ horse soring practice featured in Woodbury annual show
The Woodbury Lions Club has definitely shamed the wonderful Woodbury, Cannon County, TN community and Lions Clubs International based in Chicago, IL, when it hosted its annual horse show fundraiser which featured 24 classes of “Big Lick” Tennessee Walking Horses.
Apparently, the Woodbury Lions were not paying attention two years ago when a majority of both Democrat and Republican members of the United States House of Representatives voted in a bipartisan landslide – 333 to 96 – to unequivocally declare the “Big Lick” torture inflicted upon Tennessee Walking Horses as animal cruelty.
Among those voting to abolish the “Big Lick,” which features nearly eight pound stack shoes and chains to create the “high stepping gait”, was Tennessee Republican Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN) ,who represents Knoxville, TN, and the University of Tennessee.
The Woodbury Lions also ignored the stand taken by Lions Clubs International (LCI) in 2016 against the use of animals for entertainment, urging its 46,000plus clubs and more than 1.4 million members around the world to “refrain from fundraising activities that exploit or cause harm to animals.”
Closer to home, MTSU Horse Science Professor Dr. John Haffner says the “Big Lick” is animal cruelty. “It is a pain induced gait – if horses have not been ‘sored’ they do not learn it. The ‘Big Lick’ is a business built on the suffering and pain of horses”.
The Woodbury Lions Club main fundraising event is the annual horse show, and the Lions apparently justify the animal cruelty to “Big Lick” Tennessee Walking Horses because they do good things with the money they raise.
When confronted with a similar situation in 2015 by the Citizens Campaign Against “Big Lick” Animal Cruelty, theuniversity of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) severed all ties with the Jackson (MS) “Big Lick” Horse Show which was making an annual $50,000.00 charitable donation to its Blair Batson Children’s Hospital.
No charitable donation is worth animal cruelty.
Award winning investigative reporter Mr. Jerry Mitchell broke the story in The Clarion-ledger newspaper article, “UMMC won’t accept Charity Horse Show donations.”
Just before this year’s Woodbury Lions Club Horse Show, the grassroots Citizens Campaign Against “Big Lick”animal Cruelty (CCABLAC) started this Change.org Petition: “Lions Clubs International -Sever All Ties With “Big Lick” Animal Cruelty TN Walking Horses.”
The Petition now has over 9,100 signatures from persons all over America, and throughout the world.
“Lions Clubs International needs to sever all ties with “Big Lick” Animal Cruelty perpetrated upon Tennessee Walking Horses, and forbid any Lions Club anywhere from having anything whatsoever to do with “Big Lick” Animal Cruelty horse shows which are akin to dog fighting and cock fighting.”
On July 3, animal welfare advocates with the Citizens Campaign Against “Big Lick” Animal Cruelty, protested outside the Lions Club Horse Show. Spectator attendance was off by 80% from the 2018 Woodbury Lions show.
And to cap it all off, the Woodbury Lions Club egregiously embraced and rewarded prior acts of animal cruelty by hiring two persons—one as Horse Show Judge, and the other as Horse Show Farrier - who pled guilty to “Horse Soring” charges - violations of the Horse Protection Act of 1970. Each person was sentenced by U. S. District Court Judges.
Horse Show Judge Mr. Chris Zahnd was caught placing a “nerve cord” (zip tie) in a Tennessee Walking Horse’s mouth along the upper gum line at the Woodbury Lions Club Horse Show on July 4, 2009.
The “nerve cord” causes the horse to be distracted, and not react to digital palpation by a USDA Vet Inspector to detect soreness in his front feet which causes the “high stepping” show gait.
Horse Show Farrier Mr. Joseph Abernathy, along with Mr. Jackie Mcconnell, pled guilty on May 22, 2012 for conspiring to violate the Horse Protection Act by “applying prohibited substances, such as mustard oil, to the pastern area of Tennessee Walking Horses to sore them in order to produce an exaggerated gait in the show ring.
Clant M. Seay, founder of the grassroots Citizens Campaign Against “Big Lick” Animal Cruelty (CCABLAC) raised Tennessee Walking Horse World Grand Champion winners and contenders from 1981 to 2005.