This piece originally appeared in Stone Zone.
They think because of Biden’s mistakes that USDA have left the gate open and are ready to bolt through
A ruthless faction inside the horse show world thinks the current moment offers them cover. They believe confusion in Washington and misinterpretations of recent rulings mean they can slip back into the shadows and continue the same cruelty they have practiced for half a century. They are already acting like the barn door has been cracked open.
They are wrong.
For more than fifty years, this faction has perfected one brutal formula: chemical burns, chains, pressure-shoes, stacks, weights — agony engineered to force the grotesque, high-stepping “Big Lick” movement that wins ribbons, prestige, and big money. A torture kit masquerading as tradition.
Congress outlawed this barbarism on December 9, 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed the Horse Protection Act into law exactly fifty-five years ago. Six years later, President Gerald Ford moved to strengthen it — calling soring “clearly inhumane” and a “heinous practice” — then warned the industry that if it refused to police itself, Washington would. These weren’t liberal crusaders. They were Republican presidents standing squarely for law, order, and decency.
The industry ignored them. Washington let the issue drift. Followed by decades of industry-controlled inspectors wholooked the other way while the chemical burns festered under layers of saran wrap and showring polish – showring pens of pain where horses flail their equipment draped legs in the air as if walking on hot coals.
Half a century has passed, and the cruelty continues. The only thing that has changed is the sophistication of the cover-up and the aggressiveness of the political machinery protecting it—darker, slicker, more deeply embedded in influence and insider games. And now, this same faction is attempting to twist the present moment into the false narrative that they are finally free to operate again.
But, the truth at the core of the Big Lick is simple enough to fit on a bumper sticker: It does not exist without pain. Every honest USDA inspector knows it. Every veterinarian who has seen a horse’s raw, blistered pasterns knows it. Every former trainer who escaped the racket knows it. Even members of Congress who pretend otherwise know it.
These same insiders openly admit soring gives them competitive advantage — and then claim it is “unfair” when the law removes that advantage. You cannot design a competition that rewards pain — and then complain when the pain gets banned. There is no sportsmanship in that argument. Only confession.
Former Big Lick trainer Carl Bledsoe, a third-generation insider who left when his conscience finally outweighed the trophies, has said plainly: “There is no way physically possible for these horses to perform the desired gait without soring.” Convicted trainer Barney Davis put it even more bluntly: “You’re not going to win if you don’t sore them. A horse will not walk on his hind legs unless he’s sore. That’s just common sense.”
But it’s the whole business model.
Pain in the barn.
Ribbons in the ring.
Wash the chemicals off.
Repeat.
And the horses suffer—noble animals that helped build this country.
Meanwhile, this tiny pain-dependent sliver of one breed keeps insisting that it is essential to America’s $177 billion horse industry supporting 2.2 million jobs. That is fiction. Ending the Big Lick would not dismantle the horse industry. It would dismantle one corrupt corner that has never learned how to compete with integrity.
But this faction doesn’t rely on horsemanship or training talent. It relies on political protection — a network of lawyers, lobbyists, and legislators who have spent decades rescuing the Big Lick every time it approaches accountability.
USDA tried to break the cycle in 2024 when it issued a long-overdue update to the Horse Protection Act regulations. Predictably, Biden’s team botched the rollout, but the core reform was the first serious update in decades: ending industry self-policing and creating a federally overseen cadre of independent inspectors. The rule also included bans on the stacked shoes and leg chains long tied to soring.
The industry responded with more lawsuits. In Texas, a federal judge struck down the device bans on procedural grounds—not because USDA lacked authority, and not because soring is legal, but because the wrong administrative process was used. Critically, the judge upheld the centerpiece reform: ending industry self-policing. Neither side appealed. It stands.
In a second case, the same court temporarily blocked USDA’s scar rule but only for the plaintiffs. The faction immediately seized on these rulings, twisting them into exaggerated claims that enforcement had been dismantled, that oversight no longer existed, and that they were once again untouchable. None of that was true—yet the misinformation spread exactly as they intended.
At the 2025 Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration, the consequences were immediate. Announcements circulated suggesting reduced oversight. Entries reopened. Horses arrived in the ring crab-walking and flinching with unmistakable signs of soring. Industry-designated inspectors could have acted. USDA officials could have acted. They didn’t. And when a USDA official appeared on-site for a ceremonial function, the faction seized on it instantly, spinning it as proof that oversight was collapsing and that their old tactics were once again safe to employ.
This is how a corrupt system survives: not through explicit orders, but through distortion, implication, and the opportunistic twisting of any procedural moment into the claim that the barn doors are open.
State agriculture departments played their part, amplifying Big Lick messaging designed to mislead ordinary horse owners into thinking the HPA targets them. It doesn’t. The law targets one thing and one thing only: deliberate, pain-based gait manipulation.
Make no mistake: the industry strategy — lawsuits, pressure campaigns, misinformation, and political gamesmanship — is designed to hollow out the Horse Protection Act without ever repealing it outright. This is the swamp in its purest form: the barnyard swamp.
And now comes the part they fear most.
The industry should be more frightened now than at any point in its twisted history, because Donald J. Trump is the one man they cannot manipulate, mislead, or lull into complacency. They think they can hide behind legal fog and procedural theater — but Trump sees straight through that kind of act. He is exactly the kind of leader who takes a manufactured crisis and turns it into a historic win, exactly the man who can seize an opportunity to do something truly great and unexpected. If the soring racket thought the old playbook would work on him, they have miscalculated in spectacular fashion.
There is a clear path forward, and the Big Lick crowd knows it: the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act. And Donald J. Trump is the one leader with the power, influence, and national backing to drive it into law. It passed the House twice with overwhelming bipartisan support. It would end stacked shoes, chains, masking agents, and self-policing. It would put real USDA inspectors back on the ground and establish real penalties.
Drain the Barnyard Swamp.
Pass the PAST Act.
Enforce the law America wrote fifty-five years ago.
To the soring racket: your time is up.
Don’t let the barn door hit you in the ass.
America’s had enough. Protect the horses.