The Tennessee Walking Horse

If you type 'Tennessee Walking Horse' into Google and look at the results, the first result is a Wikipedia article. If you read this article, you will find out about the Tennessee Walking Horse being a gaited horse, and one sentence that caught my eye was 'The two basic categories of Tennessee Walking Horse show competition are called 'flat shod' and 'performance', differentiated by desired leg action. Flat shod horses, wearing regular horseshoes, exhibit less exaggerated movement, while performance horses wear built-up pads along (stacks) with other weighted action devices, creating the so-called "Big Lick" style.' The performance category that is mentioned is referring to a method of training used with Tennessee Walking Horses called soring.

Soring consists of putting platforms under the horse's feet that add extra pressure to the soles of the hoof and become painful after a while. It also involves putting chemicals such as kerosene, mustard oil or diesel fuel onto the horse's pasterns and wrapping it in plastic wrap for the night to allow it to 'cook' and then ride the horse with heavy chains on the tender parts of their legs where the chemicals were applied.

This is a training method used to achieve an exaggerated movement for showing. The trainers don't care about their horses, as long as they win prizes they are happy. It is sickening to watch the videos on YouTube of Tennessee Walking Horses that are performing the Big Lick. If you watch carefully, you will notice that absolutely none of these horses have their ears pricked, and none of these horses look happy.

Tennessee Walking Horse trainers use chemicals, chains and platform horse shoes called stacks to achieve an exaggerated gait called the Big Lick so they can win prizes in the show ring. This training method, referred to as soring, is extremely inhumane and painful for the horses. They are so unhappy that if you watch videos of Tennessee Walking Horses performing the Big Lick, you will never see one with their ears pricked!

Until next time
-KaimanawaKim

For more information, try visiting these websites:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soring
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Walking_Horse
http://www.horsefund.org/horse-soring-faq.php
https://www.avma.org/kb/resources/reference/animalwelfare/pages/soring-horses.aspx