USDA Will Be At Sunday Night Show
Copyright 2006
By Christy Howard Parsons
At 5:00pm in Calsonic Arena National Horse Protection Society’s Tom Blankenship addressed a group of walking horse trainers regarding the negotiations with the USDA.
“We told you we would tell you what we know and after two days of conversations this is what we know.”
“The USDA will be here tonight along with heightened security. The USDA has represented that they will be letting the DQP’s do their job. The USDA will be in a monitoring role.
“You all need to conduct yourselves the way you know you should. You are in the spotlight. You are being scrutinized carefully. They will arrest disorderly people. You should show your horses and represent your profession well and if there is a problem we will deal with it,” Tom Blankenship explained.
The National Horse Show Commission’s Lonnie Messick added, “It is my impression that the USDA will work with the DQPs. If they see something they don’t like, they will check the horse. We felt they rushed into the other night and we don’t want a situation like we had Friday night. The NHSC is going to check horses like we have at the whole celebration including last night. I truly believe they are going to let us work like they have all year long.”
Dr. Gipson is not present, but Dr. Todd Behre will accompany the USDA VMOs.