Over 330 Pages of Intel Provided to House Committee Debating 'Soring'

Just when you thought you've seen it all, you haven't. That's what many folks have conveyed to me this week when the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce dove into debate about the treatment of horses in the United States.

The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Commerce and Protection, led by lifelong equine protection advocate Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., included the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act, H.R. 5441, in a hearing on Thursday afternoon.

The PAST Act has been introduced in each Congress since 2012. It would amend the Horse Protection Act (HPA) of 1970, authored by my late friend, U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings, and help end soring – the intentional infliction of pain to Tennessee Walking Horses’ front limbs in order to achieve the artificial high step known as the “Big Lick” that’s prized in small rural parts of Tennessee and Kentucky.

I testified in person before the same Committee in 2013 on the issue of soring, and this week submitted written testimony including 332 pages of collateral material that provided a history of the massive amount of work we've done to pass the PAST Act and educate people on the issue of soring over the past decade.

This week’s hearing convened just as the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration's Spring Fun Show began Thursday evening in Shelbyville, Tennessee leading up to the semi-annual Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' & Exhibitors' Association's (TWHBEA) International Board of Directors meeting set to be held Saturday, May 28 at 9:30 AM EST, in Lewisburg. TWHBEA is the oldest and largest entity in the Tennessee Walking Horse breed, and the registry established in 1935 that I served as president of from 2010-2012.

Following my presidency, in May of 2013, I led the charge to secure TWHBEA's endorsement of the PAST Act, but the pro-PAST position was later reversed by TWHBEA's International Board that has long-sought to maintain the use of ankle chains and large, stacked shoes in the show ring. And TWHBEA is currently led by president, Jack Heffington, a slick lawyer who has incurred numerous soring-related violations of the Horse Protection Act during his time as a competitor.

And while the PAST Act cleared the House by a vote of 333 to 96 in 2019, renamed the "U.S. Senator Joseph D. Tydings Memorial PAST Act" at the request of the Tydings family to honor the late senator who passed away in late 2018, the bill remains dead on arrival in the Senate due to lack of support from key leaders in the Upper Chamber, and the opposition of every major walking horse group in the country.

PAST would eliminate the use of large, stacked shoes, and ankle chains that are placed on horses’ feet to exacerbate pain in the showring and produce the Big Lick; revamp the USDA’s inspection program; and provide felony level penalties to give teeth to the HPA.

And I can promise you there has been no one who has worked harder or in a more creative manner to see the PAST Act or portions of it enacted through law or regulation than I, but every single attempt over the past decade has failed.

Even Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., the lead sponsor of PAST weighed in following the hearing in a press release acknowledging the failure we've seen: "Congress passed the Horse Protection Act more than 50 years ago to end the abuse of soring, but a 2010 audit by USDA's Inspector General found persistent, rampant soring. In 2017, the USDA Office of Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) moved to finalize a rule to strengthen the agency’s Horse Protection Act regulations by incorporating some of the major tenets of the PAST Act. However, the rule was not implemented."

So now it's time to think outside the box.

Following PAST’s passage through the House in 2019, knowing the bill was dead on arrival in the Senate, AWA leaders worked with leaders in the walking horse breed for 19 months on revisions to the bill that would bring support from the top organizations in the Tennessee Walking Horse breed and from the senators who have long opposed the measure.

But that effort was torpedoed by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and the Humane Society Legislative Fund (HSLF), who unfortunately want to continue fundraising off the issue of soring, instead of putting the welfare of the horses first. These are the same groups who caused the roundup, incarceration, or death of tens of thousands of wild horses and burros residing on federal lands with the so-called 'Path Forward,' a deal HSUS and HSLF made with cattle ranchers and the American Farm Bureau.

But we've continued to press forward and worked with leaders in the Walking Horse breed to secure more than $3 million in record breaking funding for enforcement of the Horse Protection Act in 2022, a tremendous gain in light of the fact that the HPA had never seen more than $705,000 in enforcement funds in one year from 1970-2019. And the opportunity to make revisions to PAST still remains with those leaders who have conceded soring must end.

Sen. Tydings' grandson Ben Tydings Smith, who knew his grandfather's heart and spirit well weighed in this week as well: “My grandfather spoke often about compromise. He spoke often about compromise related to the HPA and how he reached across the aisle to the late U.S. Senator Howard Baker, R-Tenn., to pass the measure and secure the very first law to protect our iconic American equines — whose very backs this country was built upon. He knew the HPA wasn’t perfect. He knew the measure could have done more. But he also recognized that the perfect should never be the enemy of the good, and that supporting progress for horse protection was the right thing to do. The status quo was not acceptable to Joe Tydings.”

We should take these words to heart, acknowledge that we’ve tried our best to pass the old PAST Act, and the groups that opposed compromise should rally behind revisions that can get the bill signed into law.

Call your Members of Congress today at 202-224-3121 and ask them to support revisions to the PAST Act that can finally garner a long overdue win for the horses we care so deeply about.

Marty Irby is the executive director at Animal Wellness Action in Washington, D.C., and an 8-time world champion equestrian who was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, II for his work to protect horses. Follow him on Instagram @MartyIrby.