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Laurel Cooper • The Daily Beacon
Trump administration halts regulation on Tennessee Walking Horses Sarah Plemmons Contributor
Frustration about possible changes to the Tennessee Walking Horse tradition being put on hold has mounted in some citizens. The Horse Protection Act is a federal law established in 1970 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and prohibits the showing, sale and transportation of any horses that have been victims of soring. Soring is the process of applying toxic chemicals to a horse’s ankles, wrapping the leg in plastic to press the chemicals into the skin, then riding them in chains to irritate the leg. The goal is to produce the characteristic gait of the Tennessee Walking Horse, also known as the “Big Lick.” In 2015, The Prevent All Soring Tactics,
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or PAST, Act was introduced to Congress. The PAST Act attempted to strengthen the Horse Protection Act by prohibiting Tennessee Walking Horses, Racking Horses and Spotted Saddle Horses to be shown, exhibited or sold with any signs of an artificially altered gait. It also would raise the penalty for offenders and require a Designated Qualified Person, or DQP, licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to conduct inspections. “The rule change was a step in the right direction,” Stephanie Solomon, operations director and equine manager at Horse Haven of Tennessee, said. “It doesn’t do any good to put the chemicals on the leg without the chains to irritate it. “If you put stacks and chains on a horse that’s never been sored, they don’t move like that. They just move like a cat that’s got tape on its feet.” In the final days of the Obama administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
finalized changes to the Horse Protection Act that would have ultimately prohibited the use of soring materials including stack shoes and ankle chains. The changes were supposed to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, Jan. 24. However, with turnover in administration and new Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, the changes have been put on hold. On President Trump’s first day in office, he issued a memorandum that required all unpublished legislation to be reviewed. “It was sort of a one-two punch,” Senior Director of Rural Outreach and Equine Protection for the Humane Society of the United States Marty Irby said. “The changes didn’t go through because the Federal Register failed to publish them, and then they got caught up in the overarching issue of President Trump’s blanket rule on regulation, so it wasn’t a specific target of anything. It was just caught up in the bureaucracy of D.C.”
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The hold is not the end of the line, however. There are many other potential pieces of legislation that have been sent back for review. Irby is dedicated to working with Congress to pass the PAST Act and believes it will be reintroduced in the House soon. Irby said that many people, including Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and Priscilla Presley, the former wife of Elvis Presley, have been enormous voices in the publication and legislation process of the PAST Act. On the day the PAST Act was set to be published, Presley called on Trump to publish it. Irby commended UT for eliminating soring from the training of the traditional homecoming Tennessee walking horse. “I hope that Tennesseans and students at the University of Tennessee, millennials specifically, will really stand up and speak out against soring and really help to change things from within the state,” Irby said.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017