Thank God. Some mainstream coverage of the scandalous abuse of Tennessee Walking Horses. ABC News went for a big trainer and obtained horrific undercover footage of him beating and electrocuting horses. Jackie McConnell is now being prosecuted. A brief and disturbing video is here, along with an article. The documentary also goes into the practice of soring, in which the horses’ heels are burned with caustic chemicals and then weighted with chains – all in the pursuit of the bizarre “big lick” gait (seen here, being applauded by morons).
As a palate cleanser here’s the Friends of Sound Horses website. They’re an organisation dedicated to the true gaited horse – the one that’s not scarred, scabbed and terrified by training that forces them into an unnatural and painful way of moving. This is what it should look like:
UPDATE: (via International Fund for Horses) Pepsi have dropped sponsorship of the Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration. Now they’re getting them by the goolies. But why on earth had Pepsi hung on for so long?
When did people start making these beautiful horses do those ridiculous high stepping gaits, anyway?
Wikipedia says it kicked off in the 1940s and 1950s as it was “crowd pleasing.”