Editor's Note: The following is reprinted from the American Horse Council web site at www.horsecouncil.org.
On July 31, 2013, Senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Mark Warner (D-VA) introduced the Senate version of the Prevent All Soring Tactics Act of 2013 (PAST act). The bill is intended to strengthen the Horse Protection Act (HPA) and prevent the soring of Tennessee Walking Horses, Racking Horses, and Spotted Saddle Horses. Congressmen Ed Whitfield (R-KY) introduced the House version of this bill earlier this year. The AHC supports this bill.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which enforces the HPA, deems soring to involve the use of action devices, chemicals, pads, wedges or practices like trimming a horse’s hoof to expose sensitive tissue, so that it causes pain in the horse’s forelegs and produces an accentuated show gait for competition. According to the USDA, soring has been primarily used with Tennessee Walking Horses, Racking Horses, and Spotted Saddle Horses and continues despite the existence of a federal ban for over forty years.
The horse show industry has been regulated by the HPA for over 40 years. However, the trigger for USDA enforcement of the HPA is the showing, exhibition, auction or transport of a sore horse. For this reason USDA has focused its efforts on those areas of the show community that involve breeds and activities that are most frequently involved in soring. If a breed, discipline, or activity is not soring its horses to exaggerate their gaits, then as a practical matter the HPA has likely not adversely affected them and the PAST act, if passed, will not affect them any more than current law.
The bill would amend the HPA to prohibit a Tennessee Walking Horse, a Racking Horse, or a Spotted Saddle Horse from being shown, exhibited, or auctioned with an “action device,” or “a weighted shoe, pad, wedge, hoof band or other device or material” if it is constructed to artificially alter the gait of the horse and is not strictly protective or therapeutic. These new prohibitions would not apply to other breeds and would not prohibit the use of therapeutic pads, or bell boots or quarter boots that are used as protective devices.
The legislation would also increase fines and penalties for violations for soring, including the potential for a lifetime ban for repeat offenders.
The bill would create a new licensing process for horse show inspectors, eliminating the current program that uses industry-affiliated designated qualified persons (DQPs). This program has received criticism because these DQPs are often not independent of the industry they are inspecting. USDA would be required to train and appoint the new independent inspectors for shows and other HPA-regulated activities that wish to hire an inspector. Licensed or accredited veterinarians would be given preference for these positions. The decision to hire an inspector, however, would still be up to the show, sale or auction. It would not be made mandatory. Shows or sales that employ DQPs now would begin using USDA-selected inspectors. Shows or sales that choose not to use DQPs now would not be required to use them should the bill pass.
The AHC supports this legislation, as does the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the American Quarter Horse Association, the American Paint Horse Association, the American Morgan Horse Association, the Pinto Horse Association of America, the Arabian Horse Association, the American Saddlebred Horse Association, the United Professional Horsemen’s Association, the Appaloosa Horse Club, Maryland Horse Council, the American Veterinary Medical Association and other groups. Various efforts have been made since enactment of the HPA forty years ago to stop the soring of horses and they have not worked. This bill is focused on the problem it is intended to solve and does not adversely affect other segments of the show industry that are not soring horses and have no history of soring horses.