Here’s our favorite chronicler of horse soring and its annual feature event, the Celebration Cruelty Carnival (our words not his), Roy Exum.
The future is looking delightfully bleak for the Big Lick crowd as they limp and stumble toward their annual Shelbyville mash up. We are as delighted about this as Exum is.
Competitions that severely abuse horses so they can perform abnormally high-stepping gaits (that would be the Big Lick — name explains a lot) must be wiped off the map.
We’ll give you a little teaser here of Mr. Exum’s OpEd in The Chattanoogan:
The start of the 74th Annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration is less than three weeks away, but, according to some accounts, it just might resemble more of a funeral. Ever since the “Big Lick” industry came under the harsh glare of the nation’s scorn in May, one catastrophic blunder after another will almost assure the 11-day spectacle in Shelbyville will feature the dying breath of a loathsome faction of tainted horse owners, trainers and officials.
The day of “The Big Lick,” where horses are cruelly abused and sored so the magnificent creatures take unnatural and painful high steps, is nearing its demise and, to the delight of the 98 percent of walking horse owners worldwide, it is believed that the scurrilous leadership based in Shelbyville could easily be on the verge of collapse as well.
Tuesday's Horse 
I hope that soring is voted in as a felony horse cruelty in all states punishable by at least 10 years behind bars. Soring seems to be be done mostly in the southern states. I have never heard of it at all on the West Coast or the Western States. The fight over it is going on only because of the film that millions saw on YouTube. It lit a fire under a few people. I really don’t believe that the public could wrap their heads around the cruelty of this until they seen it for themselves. It just might be the beginning of the end of this 70 year old nightmare. Can you imagine how many of these horses limped or were whipped onto the slaughter trucks during these 70 years so these cowards could stuff their bank accounts?
LikeLike
I am so happy to read this. I was talking to a woman who runs a horse rescue in Ky recently and she mentioned that there just wasn’t much good news lately. This is encouragement for all of us who actually care about the innocent.
It took TN horsemen and women and the USDA to bring this to this point. Media has represented TN as pro-soring for years. I remember reading about soring in the late 1960’s when I first started with horses.
This story is exactly what we want to see for all breeds of equines. Bless TN for fighting back against soring and slaughter.
Let’s hope all of us can persist in fighting those who abuse and kill innocent horses. If we all persist, we can win for the horses.
LikeLike
The end of the Big Lick TWH can’t come fast enough!!
LikeLike
I heartily agree. Their gait is so naturally beautiful; so beautiful. I’ll never figure out where humans get these ideas they have to torture an animal for them to excel.
LikeLike
So very true…”Git er Done”
LikeLike