And the self-regulated horse you rode in on

Back in the days before avtomobili were available, people who had to ride long distances in the States started to realize that a horse with a softer gait might not be a bad idea. Arabians are princes of the desert and they can look like the best thing on hooves, but you ride one for an hour or so and your kidneys start to bounce out your shoulders. Icelandic horses and a few others, however, have a strange middle gait (or two) that at speed looks as though the horse's feet are trying frantically to keep up with one another; it reads a bit peculiar, but it's smooth and easy to ride, almost a gliding gait. Breeders started to work on crossing horses that showed those gaits naturally, and now we've got Missouri fox-trotters, Tennessee Walking Horses, and all manner of similar creatures. I rode an Ozark Mountain Horse once, and the three hours we spent floating through the New Mexican twilight were some of my favorite saddle times ever.

Unfortunately, with any human-animal partnership, people can fuck it up in epic style. The same species that came up with the bright idea of using ginger to wake up a tired older horse turned its attention to gaited horses and invented the Big Lick. Someone not content with a horse that rides like a Caddy decided it'd be good to also have the horse show off by having it take exaggeratedly large steps, flag its tail, and fling its head to the sky. If you've ever read Black Beauty, you may remember the section where the horse laments a harness that forces him to carry his head unnaturally high; it's a similar principle. And because it's not a natural pose, the fastest way to get that big flashy stride is to ensure that the horse's feet hurt too much for it to rest on them.

Do you see where this is going? Is it making you a little sick? Soring a horse can involve acids, stacked shoes, brutal paring of the hoof, God knows what. Combine bound feet with stiletto heels that can't be removed—"and she danced to her death in red-hot shoes"—and you've got the idea.

All of this is horrific, especially given that gaited horses are bred specifically to be sweet-tempered creatures you'd want to ride all day. Flying Lily brought this up in her discussion of how she should be working with her gaited palomino (who, never fear, ain't wearin' no big pads).

The point where I wanted to hurl the computer through the nearest wall was when I found out that Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) opposes outside inspection to forestall soring, to the point where he threatened to yank the USDA's funding entirely if they persisted in sending vets to do unannounced spot checks at shows. The kind of shows where 490 of 550 planned exhibitors pulled their horses from a show when they learned there were soring checks scheduled (hosted by the Kentucky Walking Horse Association, if you're keeping track of the perp list). "Let the industry regulate itself!" is the rallying cry. Because that's working really fucking well...unless you're a horse.