(Beth Clifton collage)
Stronger new Horse Protection Act rules will not take effect until after the 2024 show season; could be killed, again, if Donald Trump returns to the White House
WASHINGTON D.C.––New Horse Protection Act regulations introduced on April 29, 2024, but not to be enforced until February 1, 2025, may at last end soring the legs of walking horses to make them do the “Big Lick” goose-step.
If, that is, the new rules are enforced as written, and not amended or otherwise weakened over during the 270-day grace period between now and full enforcement.
Donald Trump does the Big Lick.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Trump killed previous update in 2017
The Donald Trump administration killed similar Horse Protection Act regulations in January 2017, within days of Donald Trump taking office as U.S. President.
Should Trump be elected again, with comparable support from the “Big Lick” horse show states, including all of the former Confederate states, the same is likely to happen again.
The grace period before the new Horse Protection Act regulations take effect oversteps almost all of the 2024 horse show season.
This includes the 86th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, long the main stage for “Big Lick” exhibition and for even trainers convicted of soring to be feted and rewarded.
The National Celebration is to be held from August 21 through August 31, 2024, in Shelbyville, Tennessee.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Walking horse industry lawyers looking at strategy
“Industry leadership and legal counsel will be reviewing the final rule and its contents before commenting further on next steps,” said The Walking Horse Report, the leading periodical serving the walking horse show industry, hinting that the industry will attempt to dismantle the new Horse Protection Act regulations, whether by lobbying, litigation, or legislation.
“Soring is a cruel and inhumane practice,” explained the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service [APHIS] in announcing the new regulations, “where some owners and trainers chemically or physically irritate or burn horses to provide an accentuated gait that gives them an unfair advantage in walking horse competitions and fraudulent purchase prices at horse shows.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Big Lick” exhibitors turned Horse Protection Act into cover for cruelty
“Walking horses are known for their naturally high gait,” the USDA-APHIS announcement said,” conflating high stepping with the smooth gait for which walking horses are actually bred, “but to be more successful in competitions, some owners and trainers use cruel methods to exaggerate a horse’s gait. These inhumane methods may cause the horse to suffer physical pain, distress, inflammation, or lameness while walking and moving.”
The Horse Protection Act, passed by Congress in 1970, about 35 years into the era of artificially exaggerated “Big Lick” exhibition, was meant to stop the abuses.
Walking horse industry political influence, however, transferred enforcement authority to “designated qualified persons” appointed by the “Big Lick” industry itself.
This kept “Big Lick” horse torture going for at least another 54 years.
Walking horse goose-steps.
(Merritt Clifton collage)
“This abuse must stop”
“For far too long, some within the Tennessee Walking Horse industry have sored and abused their horses, despite the industry’s inspection process and our own enforcement efforts,” offered Jenny Lester-Moffitt, under secretary for USDA marketing and regulatory programs, in announcing the new rules.
“This abuse must stop,” Lester-Moffitt said. “Eliminating this cruel practice will help protect horses competing in these shows and level the playing field for the industry. The independent inspection process,” introduced as one of the two central features of the new rules, “should strengthen the competition at these shows and benefit the many owners and trainers who do right by their animals,” Lester-Moffitt hoped.
(Beth Clifton collage)
What the new rules do
The stronger regulations, itemized by Lester-Moffitt, include:
• Eliminating industry self-regulation and the role of industry-backed Designated Qualified Persons as inspectors at horse shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions. Only APHIS inspectors and independent non-APHIS-employed horse protection inspectors screened, trained, and authorized by APHIS will have inspection authority.
• Prohibiting any device, method, practice, or substance applied to a horse that can cause or is associated with soring.
• Prohibiting on Tennessee Walking or racking horses all action devices and non-therapeutic pads, artificial toe extensions, and wedges, as well as all substances on the extremities above the hoof, including lubricants.
• Removing the scar rule from the regulations and replacing it with a more accurate description of visible dermatological changes indicative of soring.
• Amending record-keeping and reporting requirements for management at covered events to better enforce the Horse Protection Act.
Gen’s Ice Glimmer’s ankles and hooves show the scars from years of soring. “Big Lick” foe Clant Seay adopted Gen’s Ice Glimmer after his show days ended and got him off of those stacked shoes.
Scarring rule
The “scar rule,” requiring a judgement call by inspectors to enforce, has probably been the most abused, often ignored, and legally disputed aspect of the Horse Protection Act over the half century plus that it has nominally been in effect.
Animal advocates have waged many long campaigns and lawsuits over the years seeking the Horse Protection Act enforcement rule changes announced on April 29, 2024.
“In 2017, APHIS withdrew the initial Horse Protection Act final rule from public inspection per a memorandum issued by the Executive Office of the President,” the USDA-APHIS announcement of the new rules acknowledged, without mentioning the Trump role in specific.
Rider #65 at the 2017 National Walking Horse Celebration was using a Phillips bit, designed to induce pain that helps to keep a horse’s head up. (BillyGoBoy photos)
National Academies of Science review
“Following a lawsuit based on that action,” brought by the Humane Society of the U.S., USDA-APHIS summarized, “the agency withdrew the 2017 rule on October 30, 2023, and published a new proposed rule, receiving 8,787 comments.
“The new rule builds upon information we have learned since the 2017 rule was drafted,” the USDA-APHIS announcement said. “Notably, it incorporates lessons and science-based recommendations from the 2021 National Academies of Science review of the inspection program.”
Tom Vilsack, U.S.. Secretary of Agriculture.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Horse trade”
Withdrawing the 2017 rule in 2023, instead of reintroducing and enforcing it, was widely seen as a “horse trade” between U.S. Senator Bill Haggerty, a Republican from Tennessee, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.
Haggerty released holds on numerous Senate confirmations of high-level U.S. Department of Agriculture appointments, including within the Office of General Counsel, in exchange for Vilsack giving the walking horse show industry yet another of many reprieves from stricter regulations to protect show horses from soring.
The ghost of Clant Seay hovers over “Big Lick” competition. (Beth Clifton collage)
Clant Seay
But Citizens Campaign Against Big Lick Animal Cruelty founder Clant Seay, a former walking horse exhibitor turned rescuer, long the leading butt-kicker against “Big Lick” soring, was no longer around to file lawsuits, organize protests, and promote media events against political chicanery harming horses.
Seay, 76, also known online as Billy Goboy, died from complications of COVID-19 on March 6, 2023 in Oxford, Mississippi.
(See “Big Lickers” & pals Haggerty & Vilsack defy the ghost of Clant Seay and “Greatest anti-soring advocate of all time” Clant Seay dies at 76.)
Marty Irby, a former grand champion on the Tennessee Walking horse show circuit, with The Lion King, a flat-shod horse, at Shelbyville in 2006.
Marty Irby: “cautiously optimistic”
“I believe Clant would be applauding the USDA’s move to strengthen the Horse Protection Act, but in a cautiously optimistic manner,” Marty Irby told ANIMALS 24-7.
Irby, now heading the Washington D.C. lobbying firm Capitol South LLC, is a former eight-time world champion equestrian and walking horse exhibition grand champion, who served as president of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ & Exhibitors’ Association from 2010 to 2012, but was ousted after speaking, he recalled, in favor of “rigorous but fair enforcement of the Horse Protection Act.”
Irby was also among Clant Seay’s closest friends.
Clant Seay leads protest outside the White House.
(Marty Irby photo)
“Hope this is not just window dressing”
“He and I discussed these regulations at length over the years – for literally hours and hours upon end – after we got burned when the last round of these regulations were rolled back,” Irby said. “Only time will tell to see if [the newly announced changes] stick, but a new law is really what is needed to codify the necessary protections to end soring,” Irby said.
“I hope this is not just more window dressing,” Irby finished.
(See Can new regs fix what’s wrong with walking horse shows & racing?)
Keith Dane, senior director of equine protection at HSUS, Congressman Steve Cohen, Tennessee 9th District, and Mimi Brody, director of federal affairs at HSUS. (HSUS photo)
Keith Dane: “We’re still reviewing”
The Humane Society of the U.S. in 2007 hired former Friends of Sound Horses executive director Keith Dane to seek passage of legislation enabling more effective Horse Protection Act enforcement.
Dane brought to the issue walking horse industry credentials including having previously been president of the International Plantation Walking Horse Association, the New York State Plantation Walking Horse Club, and Plantation Walking Horses of Maryland.
“We’re still reviewing all of the explanations of what USDA changed and why,” Dane said, “but based on our swift review of the new regulations as amended by this rule,” he referred ANIMALS 24-7 to a blog posting jointly signed by Humane Society of the U.S. president Kitty Block and Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund.
Kitty Block. (Beth Clifton collage)
“Much stronger footing”
Posting within hours of the USDA-APHIS announcement, Block and Amundson lauded the prohibition of “the use on Tennessee walking and racking horses of devices and substances integral to soring, including tall, high-heel-like horseshoes (known as ‘stacks’) and chains that bang against a horse’s chemically sored ankles, all used to cause excruciating pain.”
Block and Amundson also approved of assigning “sole responsibility to the Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service to screen, train and authorize inspectors.
“We believe that the rule puts the government on a much stronger footing to finally eliminate soring,” Block and Amundson said.
Kitty Block, left, & Sara Amundson, right.
Block & Amundson like it
“Additionally, in the new rule,” Block and Amundson elaborated, “a horse can be considered sored if there is evidence of soring-related injuries on at least one leg.
“The rule requires that the forelimbs and hindlimbs of the horse must be free of skin conditions such as irritation, moisture, hair loss and edema that indicate a history of soring.
“And the rule prohibits licensing as a horse protection inspector anyone who has been convicted or found to have violated any part of the Horse Protection Act or its regulations, has been assessed any fine or civil penalty under it, or is the subject of a disqualification order,” Block and Amundson exulted.
Clant Seay and Gen’s Ice Glimmer in front of the Shelbyville courthouse.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Need for drastic reform”
Block and Amundson attended the 85th annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, held from August 23, 2023 through September 2, 2023.
“What our team witnessed at this spectacle,” Amundson and Block wrote then, “was further evidence of the need for drastic reform in enforcement of the federal Horse Protection Act.
“Horses, some of them so obviously lame that a judge in any other equestrian discipline would have disqualified them from competition, struggled in the show ring, flailing their legs in the air in the performance of the pain-based ‘Big Lick’ gait produced by soring.
National Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration crowds before (top) and after Clant Seay stepped in. (Beth Clifton collage)
John Allan Callaway
“John Allan Callaway,” Amundson and Block added, “who served an eight-month federal disqualification ending in 2018 for alleged violations of the Horse Protection Act, won the Celebration’s grand championship.”
“The overriding question that our staff left Tennessee with,” Amundson and Block concluded then, “was ‘Can this be the last Walking Horse Celebration where animal cruelty is displayed and even handsomely rewarded?’”
The 270-day phase-in of the new rules ensures that the 2024 National Walking Horse Celebration will almost certainly bring more of the same.
Beth & Merritt Clifton
The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election is likely to determine whether the new Horse Protection Act regulations ever take effect at all.
But there is now a chance that they will.
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The post New Horse Protection Act regs: 270 days & election from enforcement appeared first on Animals 24-7.
