About time - yet way too late

This is long and potentially not terribly interesting to many. But, I asked myself, what's the point of having a blog if you don't occasionally use it for long, focussed rants? Nothing, myself answered. So here goes:

So, this morning there was an AP story in the local paper (local back here, in East Tennessee, that is):

CHATTANOOGA - The top veterinarian who oversees the inspections of Tennessee walking horses is leaving the Department of Agriculture's inspection office.

As the horse protection coordinator for animal care, Dr. Todd Behre was at the heart of the controversy over inspections at last year's Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration in Shelbyville. Behre was among the inspectors who disqualified several horses in the champion class at the breed's top show in September, leading to the cancellation of the competition.

Walking horses are inspected for signs of soring, a type of abuse used to exaggerate the breed's natural high-stepping gait in the show ring.

You're probably asking: What was the controversy? You can read it here in the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, but basically it's this: the USDA inspectors disqualified too many champions at the Celebration, leaving only three cleared to compete; the show then cancelled the final class, leaving the breed without a Grand World Champion. The show's organizers claimed that "all of the trainers have decided to all stand together and no one is going to show tonight..." but the three trainers whose horses were ready to go weren't even asked, according to one of them:"To say I was shocked would be an understatement," [Link] Webb said. "I wasn't asked whether or not I wanted to show. I was ready to show."

I've never been to the Celebration. I owned a Walking Horse in college - a 17hh roan mare who, I was told after I bought her, was a daughter of Midnight Sun (the seller had no papers, the mare was never shown, the information had no bearing on the price). My sister has a Walking Horse now who will never be shown in any breed classes. My mare was born so long ago (sometime in either the early sixties or very late fifties) that the whole controversy never touched her personally; Radar, my sister's horse, has a little scarring on one leg, probably from chains; you can see his gait in the picture here - low. Rowan's gait was long and low, too; in fact, she scuffed her toes when she singlefooted.

Long, low, and easy: that's what Tennessee Walking Horses were bred to do for well over a century.

High and flashy: that's what Saddlebreds are bred to do.

There's a clash. And it's the horses - and the breed - that suffer.

Let me repeat a sentence from today's article (emphasis is mine):

Walking horses are inspected for signs of soring, a type of abuse used to exaggerate the breed's natural high-stepping gait in the show ring.

There's a false assumption in that sentence: that the hight-stepping gait is natural.

Look at this picture: It's Midnight Sun, one of the most famous, best-known, and all-around brilliant Walkers of his generation - hell, ever. Had he been born in 1980 he'd probably never have been shown, but he was born in 1940. He was the first stallion to become world champion of his breed - in 1945 and 1946 at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration at Shelbyville. Then he was retired from active showing and began cleaning up at "get of sire": he sired horses that were grand champions there seven times; grand-sired the supreme winner five times; and was the great-grandsire of nearly EVERY year's champion since that time. And that's just at the one show ... But look at him. Would he win now? Not sure? Here's a current champion. Now what do you think? Take one more look - this time at Sun's front feet. Now look at the other horse's.

Un. Natural.

Those are called "pads," "stacks," and "boots". Besides the gear, the horse's hoof is built up to a bizarre height, forcing the its balance backwards. You'll notice that this photograph was taken at a steep angle, too - the ring is flat, of course - and you'd be hard put to find any action shot of a TWH, or any posed shot for that matter, that isn't absurdly angled to fake the line they want. But back to the hooves. Pads build up the horse's front feet to an angle that means the horse's action behind is artificially low, to keep his balance. Weights are used - weights wrapped around the padding, chains wrapped around the ankle - to make the horse lift his feet absurdly high when the weight is removed. Check out the photo of the horse being unloaded at this year's Celebration; you can see how burdened the horse's front legs are.

I don't now live anywhere where TWHs are bred (Maryland is Thoroughbreds and Standardbreds, mostly), but I remember vividly the Walkers out in the fields, huge boots on their wedges of forefeet, and chains wrapped around their padded ankles. Believe me, you never saw Walkers cantering in their pastures, unless they were brood mares or young foals. They lumbered.

I also remember going to a gaited-horse show when I was in college - would have been '72 most likely; I was in the Equestrian club, and I owned a Walker, so I thought I might enjoy it. It was sad and bizarre, is what it was. There were both Walkers and American Saddlebreds at the show, which to my mind is a huge mistake for TWH people. There would be a class of Walkers - very bizarrely, in the halter classes people hung over the rails and hollered at the horses, waving things and throwing things, anything to make the horse look alert - startled, more like. I never saw anything like that at "regular" shows, Appaloosas or Arabs or any performance-based show for hunters or hacks. It was downright crazy. But I digress a bit.

The main thing is, the saddle classes. You'd have a TWH class, with these horses loping ponderously around the ring, prone to breaking gait around the corners because their balance was so precarious, working so hard to maintain the gait. And then the next class would be Saddlebreds, and they'd skim around the ring, light-footed and joyous-looking. The contrast was absurd. I can't imagine any spectator leaving that show and wanting to buy a TWH based on what he'd just seen.

Here - check out a couple of Saddlebreds at show. Compare them, especially the second one racking on, with that "big lick" shot above. See what I mean.

So, what, you're probably asking, does the USDA have to do with all this? Pads and chains may be harsh, but they're not illegal. What is illegal is "soring" - yes, from "sore". Back in the day it was with acid or caustic chemicals - sometimes a botched application would eat the leg to the bone (not hard in horses, where the lower legs are basically tendon, ligament, and bone). That was made illegal in the early 70s, but it was still going on more or less openly throughout the decade. The TWH people had no more than half-hearted efforts to curb it well into the 80s, where they began to police themselves with DQPs (Designated Qualified Persons) who inspect the horses. But there has long been rumor that the DQPs didn't do much of a job, more whitewash than anything else; obvious soring was out but all fields advance, even such as this, and newer chemicals left less marking.

In 2006, armed with a new and more sensitive method for detecting chemical soring, the USDA cracked down. Their new regime ended up causing many small shows to close or cancel, and larger ones to suffer as "great" competitors were left standing in their trailers rather than risk examination. It culminated at the Celebration, where the three legal horses were deprived of their chance to win Grand World Champion - not by the US government, but by the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders' and Exhibitors' Association (TWHBEA), who closed the show on their own. One of those contenders - MG Above the Rest - died of colic shortly after the Celebration; his chance is gone forever.

Many trainers claim the USDA is too strict; many claim they love the horses and would never abuse them. The USDA thinks otherwise - and many trainers agree with them.

The crackdown is - or should be - welcome. It's long overdue. But it's probably too late.

The problem is now endemic. The original breed - like the flat-shod plantation horses that show now, in their own "plantation" or "pleasure" classes, alongside the high-stepping padded-and-stacked ones - was bred to step long and low, not high and flashy. The decision to reward a higher step led to the 'big lick' becoming desirable and necessary for winning; but to get it quickly the showers had to torment the horses. Even now, pads, stacks, and chains are used legally to produce an unnatural gait - and because it is unnatural, it isn't being passed to future generations: breeders have no idea what horses can do naturally because there is nothing natural about the way they are shown. Because of the disconnect between the inherited gait and the desired one, produced by unnatural methods (even if soring is not practiced), breeders have no way to seek out high-steppers to try and consolidate the desired traits: ring performance is not correlated with natural ability.

Back in the 70s I wondered why TWH showers didn't just buy Saddlebreds if that's what they wanted - I still do. You'll note that that breed doesn't have these problems at their shows - because their horses do what they've been bred to do, not what they've been forced (even if not tortured) into doing. It's a vicious cycle that could only be broken by allowing decades to breed the gait into the horses - and that's a solution which will never be adopted.

The breed is trapped in a cycle which can only be broken by changing what the desired outcome is. I doubt that will happen unless the government shuts the shows down entirely. And I think we know how likely that is.