Walking on Nails

Dog fights, chicken fights, and other abusive acts are well known and punishments are well-enforced.

But there is another atrocity occurring that most people are completely oblivious to. Horse soring is a painful practice used to accentuate a horse’s gait (a horse’s manner of walking). As the sored horse tries to escape the pain that is being afflicted on his front legs, he snatches them up quickly, which gives the desired effect of an exaggerated lift in the front, known as the “big lick.” Meanwhile, he tries to take as much weight as possible off his front feet by shifting his weight to his back feet, squatting down in the rear as he reaches beneath himself with his hind legs in a gait that is called the “praying mantis crawl.”

‘Soring’ is the process of putting acidic products and irritating chemicals on a horse’s legs and pressure shoeing, which contains methods of causing pain to the bottom of the horse’s feet through mechanical means so that the horse will lift his legs higher. It is commonly found in the world of the Tennessee Walking Horse and we see it most prominently with the performance horses, or “Big Lick” horses.

This is a ridiculous sight to watch and utterly gruesome when you imagine the pain the horse is enduring just to obtain a certain walk for our pleasure, and for the competition that they have no choice in participating in.

In 1976 the Congress passed a law against soring, called the Horse Protection Act. From the very beginning, underfunding to USDA, U.S department of Agriculture, for the enforcement of this law has caused many issues in banning this cruel act. Because of this underfunding, there are not enough USDA members at every event to check and disqualify the offenders.

Recently a bit of progress has been made with convicting the offenders. A recent ruling convicted Jackie L. McConnell, the notorious Tennessee Walking Horse trainer caught on video brutally abusing horses. He was sentenced on September 18, 2012, to pay $75,000 and serve three years of probation for violating federal law. Although the maximum possible sentence for the crime was five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, this penalty is one of the harshest yet to be given. Judge Mattis wanted to toughen down and make an example that this federal law needs to be enforced and this abuse must be stopped.