This is the first post of several in coming days that deal with soring horses, The Horse Protection Act, and Friends of Sound Horses (FOSH). Many people still don't know what soring is. Soring is the deliberate mutilation of a horse to make its gait so unusual that the rider will win prizes in the show ring and prestige from fellow owners and trainers. The methods used to achieve the piteous, grotesque gait in the picture above are blistering the horse's forelegs through the use of chemicals, either applied or injected; cruel trimming of the horse's hooves; and forcing the horse to endure pressure-shoeing: all of this to achieve the unnatural gait you see above. That gait is the result of the poor horse lifting his legs high to avoid any more pain.
Next time, a brief history of how this practice came about.
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