TWSHO Response to The Tennessean Poll on Soring Trainers
Monday, August 6, 2012
Today The Tennessean is asking people, “Will you boycott future Tennessee walking horse shows to protest horse soring?” There isn’t anyone more concerned about protecting horses than those trying to reform the walking horse industry. Those reformers achieved a 98.5% compliance rate from the USDA last year. Unfortunately it has become popular, because its easy, to go after the entire industry, rather than listen to how to best reform it.
If The Tennessean is interested at all, in saving a sport that generates hundreds of millions of dollars for small towns across the southeastern United States and donates almost its entire proceeds to charities – millions of dollars – then they should listen to those who are working night and day to run soring trainers out of the business, and actually have a track record of doing it.
There are shows that have more stringent inspections processes, issue more violations, and punish more severely, soring trainers than even the USDA. If people want to rid the system of soring trainers, they need to tell the US Department of Agriculture to send inspectors to shows where there are NO inspections and support the shows with the strictest inspections.
If The Tennessean was truly interested in getting rid of soring trainers, they would talk to the people actually doing it.