This year’s version PAST (Prevent All Soring Tactics) Act has been introduced into the House last Tuesday, July 28th, 2015. Strong opposition by Rep Marsha Blackburn and her supporters has, in the past, prevented the PAST Act from moving forward. Be sure to urge your representatives from both the House and Senate today to get on board and approve the PAST Act. There is absolutely no benefit or need for horses to be tortured for our amusement. Here is a link to an easy to use form to find their names and contact information: https://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup. ~ HfH

World Grand Champion walking horse Watch it Now ridden by trainer Jimmy McConnell, from Shelbyville, Tenn., makes its way around Neyland Stadium before an NCAA college football game between Memphis and Tennessee, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, in Knoxville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Wade Payne)

From: The Huffington Post
By: Christina Wilkie

The bill takes aim at the practice of “soring” horses to give them a prancing gait.

WASHINGTON — Two veterinarians serving in Congress, one a conservative Republican and the other a Democrat, came together late Tuesday to introduce a bill aimed at ending an especially horrific type of horse abuse.

Reps. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) and Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.), along with more than 100 of their fellow Democrats and Republicans, are co-sponsoring the Prevent All Soring Tactics Act, or PAST. The bill would strengthen the existing ban on the practice of “soring” horses, or using painful chemicals, heavy chains and other devices to give breeds like the Tennessee Walking Horse an exaggerated, prancing gait.

“Horse soring — the intentional inflicting of pain to horses feet to achieve a high stepping gait — has been illegal for well over 30 years,” Yoho said in a statement Wednesday. “Unfortunately, soring is still practiced to this day in clear violation of the Horse Protection Act (HPA) of 1970. As a veterinarian and lover of animals, I feel the time is now to stop the practice of horse soring for good.”

A companion bill to the House PAST Act has already been introduced in the Senate, sponsored by New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte. So far, it has garnered more than 40 co-sponsors.

The majority of competitive Tennessee Walking Horse events are concentrated in two states, Kentucky and Tennessee, and the show horse industry there has long denied that soring still takes place. But USDA inspectors at the 2014 Celebration, the marquis annual Tennessee Walking Horse show, found that of the 389 horses randomly selected for testing, more than half showed signs of soring.

Some of the chemicals that can be used to sore horses include blistering mustard oil, salicylic acid and lighter fluid. What looks to outsiders like a show horse prancing is, in reality, that horse flinching in pain because its hooves and legs have been burned, weighted down with weights, or even shocked with electrical volts.