Trainers: Stop Hurting Horses For Show Tricks!

0 signatures toward our 50,000 goal

0.0% Complete

Sponsor: The Animal Rescue Site

Help end horse soring for good!

Trainers: Stop Hurting Horses For Show Tricks!

It’s a sad fact that for many horse trainers, torturous practices like soring are part of the job.

Horse soring involves whipping, burning, shocking, or otherwise irritating a horse’s forelegs to get the animal to step higher when presenting in shows and auctions. Other horse trainers shove weights or shims between the hoof and the shoe. Some do both, while wrapping heavy chains around their horse’s caustic chemical coated legs.

The barbaric practice has been condemned by government agencies as well as animal activists alike. And while the U.S. Department of Agriculture has been historically responsible for overseeing horse training operations at a federal level, and fining those found guilty of horse soring under the Horse Protection Act, recent decrees from the Trump Administration have severely restricted the Act’s efficacy.

A strengthened Horse Protection Act was scheduled to be put into the Federal Register in January 2016, but a White House order on President Donald Trump’s first day in office brought it and many other regulations back for review.

Through interviews with convicted horse abuser Barney Davis, the Humane Society has helped to expose the horrific popularity of soring among horse trainers. “Every trainer sores horses,” said Davis, who pled guilty to violating the Horse Protection Act on several counts in 2016. “You have to, to get them to walk…you’re not going to win if you don’t sore [horses].” Davis not only recounted the gruesome truth about soring — bloody forelegs and horses wailing in pain — he also indicated that judges and inspectors at many horse exhibitions are paid to look the other way.

There is no excuse for horse soring to continue in the United States. The federal government and law enforcement has the authority to end this practice and protect our horses.

Sign below and tell the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service that the Horse Protection Act needs to be strengthened and enforced.

The Petition

Dear USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service,

The people of the United States have spoken, and will not stand idly by while horses across the country are tortured through barbaric soring practices.

Horse soring involves whipping, burning, shocking, or otherwise irritating a horse's forelegs to get the animal to step higher when presenting in shows and auctions. Other horse trainers shove weights or shims between the hoof and the shoe. Some do both, while wrapping heavy chains around their horse's caustic chemical coated legs.

With the change in presidential administrations, the Horse Protection Act has lost a lot of its efficacy, and the USDA is no longer able to enforce safety in horse training.

There is no excuse for horse soring to continue in the United States. The federal government and law enforcement still has the authority to end this practice and protect our horses.

I implore you to finally make horse soring illegal by publishing the rules against its use in the Federal Register.

Sincerely,

DEV MODE ACTIVE. BRAND: gg