TWHBEA Executive Director Charles Hulsey confirmed Thursday TWHBEA will
not respond to a recent article published by Equus Magazine. The article,
written by Joanne Meszoly, investigated whether or not soring still exists
in the industry and what roles the USDA and various horse industry
organizations (HIOs) play in enforcing the Horse Protection Act.
    Several pictures in the article showed graphic illustrations of horses
that had been sored, although no date as to when those pictures were taken
was published.
    "I think there was a lot of old news in that article and the pictures
were not representative of what we see today," said Hulsey. "They [Equus]
relied very heavily on people who have an agenda against the performance
horse. I feel a lot of information Mr. Evans [NHSC board member Craig Evans]
gave them was taken lightly.
    "I was contacted by them [Equus] when they were doing the article and
the information I gave them was as positive as it could possibly be. I told
them that we were spending thousands of dollars on supporting the NHSC and
keeping horses clean, and that we were giving both lip service and money to
accomplish those goals."
    Despite Hulsey feeling the article did not reflect today's show horse
industry, he said that TWHBEA's executive board had made a decision not to
respond to accusations made in the article.