SHOW HIO To Be Inactive
Friday, October 4, 2013

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The SHOW Horse Industry Organization (HIO) will become inactive and not affiliate horse shows effective with the completion of the Tunica, Mississippi Horse Show in November. SHOW currently has approximately 20 affiliated shows remaining in 2013 and will honor those commitments. SHOW affiliated 143 shows in 2013.

The Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration, owner of SHOW, will keep SHOW alive but inactive as was the case prior to being asked to take over enforcement responsibilities April 1, 2009 by the Walking Horse Trainers' Association and the Walking Horse Owners' Association, partners in the National Horse Show Commission HIO.

SHOW was formed over 10 years ago as a backup HIO for Celebration sponsored shows in the case of an emergency but was never activated until 2009. The announcement is being made at this time to enable another group to step up and take over these responsibilities.

"While the Celebration was willing to activate SHOW to help the industry during a difficult time, it has been demanding and expensive and its time we concentrated on our horse shows, particularly The Celebration," said SHOW Board Chairman Buddy Nelson. "We will support any other responsible group that implements an effective HIO program to enforce the Horse Protection Act in the future."

The Celebration loaned SHOW money to get it started in hopes it would be self-sustaining, but that was not the case. The Celebration has loaned SHOW over $500,000 as others HIOs came into existence and started affiliating shows in competition with SHOW.

"Our involvement in SHOW has served its purpose and we are extremely proud of the hard work of our Designated Qualified Persons (DQP). The number and percentage of violations has dramatically decreased and this year has been a tremendous success," Nelson added. "This year SHOW has inspected 15,869 horses and written 335 violations, including some that are not HPA violations, a compliance percentage of 98%. Our working relationship with the Department of Agriculture has improved and been beneficial to both organizations as well as the industry."

The Celebration has been put in the position of penalizing some of their customers and supporters and that is a difficult position. Their concentration will now be on their horse shows and promoting the breed.

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