Last month the circus came to Chattanooga, and protesters came with it — holding signs decrying cruelty to animals.
We wondered, here on this page, why this didn’t happen all across Tennessee over the cruelty to Tennessee walking horses.
Somehow it seemed a bit incongruous that here — home of Tennessee walking horse soring and the place a Tennessee Walking Horse Hall of Fame trainer Jackie McConnell was prosecuted, pleaded guilty and sentenced — that it became easier to spot protesters for circus animals than to find consistent support for more humane treatment of our state’s own iconic horse breed.
Well, the cavalry has arrived. On paper, at least.
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Reform in walking horse industry must include owners
Change.org has a new petition to “Speak out against/boycott the ‘animal cruelty’ big lick Tennessee walking horse show in Columbia, Tenn., on April 24-25, 2015.”
According to the petition, those dates are when the Gulf Coast Charity Celebration will be held some 400 miles inland at Columbia in Maury County. The show used to be in Panama City, Fla., but failed there “due to lack of support.”
The petition was created online Saturday, and by 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, 2,719 people had signed it.
Soring is the practice of deliberately injuring a horse’s legs and hooves to force the horse to perform an artificial high-stepping gait highly prized in today’s walking horse show ring. It’s known as the “big lick” and it turns beautiful, athletic walking horses with a natural and somewhat arched gait into horses that lurch around the ring with little resemblance to the smooth, fluid magic of our champion animals from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s.
Over recent decades, too many trainers and owners short-cut time-consuming training and opted instead for caustic chemicals, painful shoeing, heavy chains and oversized shoe pads to exaggerate the gait.
So far, the 45-year-old Horse Protection Act hasn’t stopped soring. And other attempts at reform and inspection have been stymied at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Thus, it seems up to us to protect these wonderful horses.
The sign wavers at the circus remind us that there is another way to skin a horse abuser — with our protests and refusal to support their shows. Public opinion does matter: In 2012, after the McConnell case, the University of Tennessee decided to showcase a sound, flat-shod horse in its annual homecoming game’s walking horse demonstration. This year, the University of Mississippi disassociated itself from “big lick” charity shows.
We can make a difference — even if it’s just one animal at a time.