President Donald Trump is taking on animal cruelty. His administration is cracking down on abusive puppy mills, pursuing chronic animal welfare violators, and moving to end cruel and unnecessary animal testing. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has made animal welfare a priority. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is working to end testing on mammals by 2035.
Good. That’s the kind of leadership we’ve come to know from President Trump.
But somebody at USDA apparently didn’t get the memo.
Last December, I warned about a ruthless faction of horse abusers who have spent decades hiding behind lawyers, lobbyists, and political connections while inflicting cruelty on Tennessee Walking Horses. Their racket is called soring. Chemical burns, pressure shoes, chains, and other instruments of pain used to force the grotesque, high-stepping gait known as the “Big Lick.” A torture act masquerading as a sporting event. Now USDA’s own findings should scare the hell out of them.
Following recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, USDA began testing horses’ blood for drugs that could hide pain and make soring harder to detect. The results were staggering. Drugs showed up in nearly 99 percent of blood samples collected at three major Tennessee Walking Horse shows. Sedatives. Numbing agents. Drugs that can mask pain and inflammation. Nearly every sample.
Some were detected at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration — the industry’s biggest show, hosted by an organization that has been fighting federal horse protection rules in court. You cannot make this stuff up.
The blood tests don’t prove every horse was abused. But they raise a disturbing question: How can inspectors spot abuse when drugs may be hiding the pain? You’d think USDA would be cracking down. Instead, Washington had already decided to back off.
Earlier this year, USDA announced that even when its inspectors find a horse is sore or breaking federal rules, they won’t alert show officials or take the usual steps to keep that horse out of competition. Why? Because owners need a chance to appeal.
Horse shit. The horses can’t appeal. Of course owners deserve due process, but USDA needs to step up. The Horse Protection Act was passed to keep sore horses out of the ring. That’s only fair to the horses, honest competitors, and the sport itself.
Meanwhile, USDA has delayed plans to replace industry inspectors with independent inspectors and stopped training their replacements. So taxpayers keep funding a federal horse protection program while Washington leaves the industry controlling inspections.
And now another USDA rule is under review. If it weakens the law or keeps the industry policing itself, kill it. No more loopholes disguised as reform. The USDA should not, under any circumstances, undermine the President’s animal welfare agenda.
Who the hell is running this show — USDA or the people it’s supposed to regulate?
And let’s be clear. This fringe faction doesn’t represent America’s horse industry. Responsible horse owners and equine organizations have spent decades fighting this cruelty while a handful of politically connected insiders drag horse sport through the mud. This crowd has badly miscalculated if it thinks lawyers, political connections, and Washington bureaucracy will protect it forever.
President Nixon signed the Horse Protection Act in 1970. The law is already on the books. Taxpayers are already paying for enforcement. Now President Trump and Secretary Rollins have an opportunity to end a disgrace that has plagued American agriculture for generations.
Enough of this charade. End industry-controlled federal inspections. Enforce the damn law. Shut the soring racket down.
Drain the barnyard swamp.
