Demand that Secretary Vilsack of the USDA RIGOROUSLY enforce the Horse Protection Act.

Though congress passed the Horse Protection Act in the 1970’s, the cruel practice of “soring”continues and horses continue to suffer. Soring is the cruel, painful and deliberate way to get horses to perform a particular gait in competitions. HIO’s or horse industry organizations are allowed to train their own inspectors. This is not helping the abused horses. There are videos of horses legs and hooves being burned with chemicals and moaning in pain in the stalls where they stay most of their lives. Sometimes their legs are chained together during training to further irritate the areas that have already been burned causing the poor animals to step in an exaggerated gait to try and stop the pain. Big Lick competitions are disgusting, cruel events. Inspectors need to be independent agents from the USDA not horse competition insiders.
There are more cruel techniques that are too numerous to list here. To learn more, go to The Humane Society of the United States and look up the practice of “soring”.