Yes, horse soring still happens. Despite being illegal since 1970, the practice persists in corners of the Tennessee Walking Horse show industry, and enforcement remains a significant challenge. As recently as 2020, USDA data showed violations being detected at horse shows, and a major federal rule published in 2024 to strengthen protections has already been partially struck down by courts and delayed until at least late 2026.
What Soring Is and Why It Exists
Soring is the deliberate infliction of pain on a horse’s front legs to produce an exaggerated high-stepping gait known as the “big lick.” When a horse’s forelegs are made painfully sensitive, it reflexively lifts and snaps them forward with each step to minimize contact with the ground. The result is a dramatic, crowd-drawing movement that show judges reward.
The methods vary. Chemical soring involves applying caustic irritants to the skin of the lower legs. Mechanical soring uses devices like weighted shoes, stacked pads, or chains that strike already-sensitized skin. Some trainers combine both approaches, applying chemicals and then fastening chains around the pasterns so that every step amplifies the pain. Nails, screws, and sharp objects have also been found inserted into hoof pads. The legal definition under federal law is broad: any substance, device, or practice applied to a horse’s limb that causes or can reasonably be expected to cause pain, inflammation, or lameness counts as soring.
The financial incentive is real but not enormous by professional sports standards. At the National Tennessee Walking Horse Celebration, the biggest annual event, total purse money in 2016 was over $100,000, with individual class prizes ranging from $750 to $15,000. The payoff goes beyond prize money, though. A winning horse’s breeding and training fees increase substantially, and the competitive culture creates pressure to keep up with rivals who may be cutting corners.
How the Practice Became Widespread
Soring emerged in the early 1950s as a shortcut. Many trainers believe the big lick gait can be achieved through legitimate conditioning, but soring produces results faster. By the 1960s, the practice had become widespread enough to prompt federal legislation. Congress passed the Horse Protection Act in 1970, making it illegal to show, sell, auction, or transport a sored horse. The law also bans the use of chains, boots, and other action devices at shows if they cause or can be expected to cause soreness.
More than fifty years later, the law remains the primary tool against soring. But enforcement has been its persistent weakness.
The Inspection Problem
The Horse Protection Act created an unusual enforcement model. Rather than relying entirely on government inspectors, it allowed the industry to police itself through Horse Industry Organizations (HIOs) that train and deploy their own inspectors, called Designated Qualified Persons (DQPs). The USDA sends its own veterinary medical officers (VMOs) to some shows as an independent check, but it can’t cover every event.
The gap between industry self-policing and government oversight tells the story. A USDA Office of Inspector General audit found that industry inspectors issue substantially more violations when federal veterinary officers are physically present at a show than when they’re working alone. At shows where only industry inspectors were present, violation rates between 2018 and 2020 hovered below 1 percent of horses inspected. When USDA veterinarians attended the same shows, they found violations at rates roughly three to five times higher.
That pattern suggests the low violation numbers at industry-only shows don’t reflect an absence of soring. They reflect lax enforcement. Industry inspectors, who depend on the show community for their livelihood, face an obvious conflict of interest. The USDA itself acknowledged that the current program “is not sufficient to prevent soring.”
How Soring Is Detected
Pre-show inspections are the primary line of defense. Inspectors palpate (press and feel) the horse’s lower legs, watching for flinching, pulling away, or other pain responses. They also look for physical evidence: scars, hair loss, thickened skin, or inflamed tissue on the front pasterns.
A specific standard called the “scar rule” applies to all horses born after October 1, 1975. Under this rule, the front and front-side surfaces of the pasterns must be free of bilateral scarring, granulomas (raised lesions caused by chronic inflammation), excessive hair loss, or other signs of abuse. If both legs show matching signs of damage, the horse is presumed sore and barred from competition.
Technology has added new tools. Thermography, which uses infrared imaging to detect heat from inflammation, was reintroduced into the inspection process in 2008 after earlier attempts were resisted by the industry partly because it slowed down the pre-show process. Modern thermography equipment is cheaper, more portable, and faster. Inspectors capture thermal images of the lower legs from multiple angles, looking for heat patterns that indicate hidden chemical burns or irritation. Swab testing can detect prohibited chemical substances on the skin, and blood testing can reveal medications given to mask pain responses during inspection.
Trainers who sore horses have adapted to each detection method over the decades. They time chemical applications so irritation peaks during training but subsides enough to pass inspection. They use numbing agents so horses don’t react to palpation. They apply substances that are harder to detect with swabs. It’s a long-running arms race between abusers and regulators.
Where Enforcement Stands Now
In May 2024, the USDA published a final rule designed to overhaul the system. The rule would have replaced industry-led inspections with USDA-authorized Horse Protection Inspectors, tightened prohibitions on soring, and banned certain equipment like stacked pads and action devices that critics argue exist primarily to facilitate or conceal soring.
The rule has been largely stalled. In January 2025, a federal court in Texas vacated several key provisions, including the ban on pads and action devices and a proposed replacement for the scar rule. A separate lawsuit in mid-2025 challenged existing regulations, and a preliminary injunction further fragmented the enforcement landscape. In response, the USDA postponed the effective date for the surviving provisions to December 31, 2026, citing the “piecemeal regulatory environment” created by the competing court decisions.
Formal enforcement actions have also dropped sharply. In 2017, the USDA initiated 75 cases and issued 213 warning letters. In 2018, 2019, and 2020 combined, it initiated just 2 cases and issued zero warning letters. Whether that reflects a genuine decline in soring, a shift in enforcement priorities, or resource constraints depends on who you ask. Given the inspection data showing that violations rise whenever federal veterinarians show up, many animal welfare advocates argue the drop in enforcement actions reflects reduced effort, not reduced abuse.
Why It Persists
Soring continues for the same reason it started: competitive pressure in a show culture that rewards an artificial gait. As long as the big lick remains the standard that judges score highest, the incentive to cheat exists. The industry’s self-policing model has a structural conflict of interest. Federal oversight is stretched thin. And legal challenges have repeatedly delayed or weakened regulatory reforms.
There is a significant segment of the Tennessee Walking Horse community that opposes soring and competes in “flat shod” classes where horses wear normal shoes and perform their natural gait. These owners and trainers have pushed for stronger enforcement and view soring as a stain on the breed’s reputation. But the performance horse segment, where prize money and breeding value concentrate, has resisted changes that would fundamentally alter how horses are shown.
The bottom line is that soring is illegal, detectable, and widely condemned, but the combination of financial incentives, weak enforcement infrastructure, and ongoing legal battles means it has not been eliminated. The regulatory framework meant to stop it is, as of mid-2025, in legal limbo.