The 72nd Annual Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration concluded on its traditional date of the Saturday before Labor Day in Shelbyville, Tenn.  The SHOW HIO was the affiliating HIO of the show for the second consecutive year and the USDA was in attendance each day of the show.

The total number of horses presented for inspection in 2010 was 2,574 as compared to 2,618 in 2009.  Pre-show entries were down as compared to last year as well.  In 2010, 2,322 horses entered the ring for competition as compared to 2,223 in 2009, an increase of 99 entries in the ring.

SHOW wrote a total of 206 violations with 11 of those being non-HPA violations.  Of the HPA violations (195) 170 were pre-show violations and 25 were post-show violations.  In 2009 SHOW wrote 196 total violations with 18 of those being non-HPA violations.  Of the HPA violations (178) 160 were pre-show and 18 were post-show.

Whereas the SHOW violations were very similar in numbers from 2009 to 2010, the USDA violations were drastically different.  The USDA took information on 64 violations in 2010 as compared to 405 in 2009, an 84% decline.  A major portion of the decrease in violations from the USDA was the scar rule.  In 2009 the USDA took information on 223 scar rule violations and in 2010 they took information on 26 scar rule violations.  In 2010, SHOW wrote 61 scar rule violations, while in 2009 SHOW 82 wrote scar rule violations, a 25% decline.

Of the 64 violations from the USDA, 37 were pre-show violations and 27 were post-show violations.  In total, SHOW and USDA wrote 601 violations in 2009 and 270 in 2010, a 55% decline in one year.  “Overall we were very happy with the condition of the horses brought before us.  The trainers have worked very hard throughout the year to bring compliant horses and this continued during the Celebration.  There is still room for improvement and SHOW is committed to working with the industry to achieve this progress,” said DQP Coordinator Tony Edwards.

“I appreciate the working relationship we had with the USDA VMOs and am very happy with the decrease in the violations given by the USDA with the same equipment and inspection process that was used in 2009 by those VMOs,” concluded Edwards.