
Walking horses all over the U.S. have long faces over Ed Whitfield’s resignation.
(Beth Clifton photo)
Ed Whitfield stood against making horses goose-step
SHELBYVILLE, Tennessee––Congressman Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican known for his attempts to reform the walking horse industry, on August 31, 2016 gave participants in the 78th annual Tennessee National Walking Horse Celebration something extra to celebrate by announcing his resignation from Congress, effective at 6 p.m. on September 6, the first day Congress is back in session after the summer recess.
The 2016 edition of the Tennessee National Walking Horse Celebration, held each year in Shelbyville, opened on August 24 and will close on September 3. Held annually since 1937, the Celebration is “considered the Super Bowl of the walking horse show world,” explained Holly Meyer of the Nashville Tennessean in an August 2015 exposé of walking horse abuses there.
Two-thirds-plus of horses sored
USDA records show that from 67% to 98% of the horses exhibited at the Shelbyville Celebration between 2010 and 2013 tested positive for substances which might have masked “soring,” the focal concern of an amendment to strengthen the Horse Protection Act of 1970 that Whitfield unsuccessfully introduced to Congress in 2013.
Efforts to pass the act led to Whitfield being rebuked in July 2016 by the House Committee on Ethics, a year after he had announced that he would retire after completing his current term in January 2017.
Special election
Resigning early “will set in motion a special election for his successor to finish the remaining months of his term,” explained Cristina Marcos of The Hill. “The special election will be held on the same day as the general election contest between Republican James Comer, who’s favored to take the seat, and Democrat Sam Gaskins.”
Whitfield’s resignation raised the question of what it took to get a Republican Congressional Representative from Appalachia, arguably the most culturally conservative part of the U.S., to take a firm stand against walking horse industry abuses in the first place?
The House Committee on Ethics on July 14, 2016 hinted that for Whitfield the balance of considerations may have been tipped by his wife Constance Harriman-Whitfield having been from 2011 to 2015 a senior policy advisor for the Humane Society Legislative Fund, the lobbying arm of the Humane Society of the United States.

U.S. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY)
“Failed to prohibit lobbying contacts”
Following up on a complaint investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics, the House Committee on Ethics unanimously found that Whitfield “failed to prohibit lobbying contacts between his staff and his wife,” and found that Whitfield “failed to take the proper care to avoid violations of the applicable rules,” specifically a House rule that requires members to “prohibit all staff employed by that member … from making any lobbying contact … with that individual’s spouse, if that spouse is a lobbyist.”
The House Committee on Ethics concluded, however, that “Whitfield did not intend to violate the House rules or other standards of conduct, or to benefit himself or his spouse by doing so.”

Marsha Blackburn
Retaliation?
Whitfield announced in September 2015 that he would retire at the end of 2016, after serving 10 terms as Representative for the 1st Kentucky District.
“This report is the lowest possible reprimand for a House member,” assessed Jeremy Silk Smith of Roll Call, an online political journal published since 1995.

(Beth Clifton collage)
Both Whitfield and Harriman-Whitfield have attributed the ethics investigation to retaliation by Congressional defenders of the walking horse industry, among them 7th Tennessee Congressional District Representative Marsha Blackburn, a fellow Republican, in response to Whitfield’s efforts to strengthen the Horse Protection Act of 1970.
Reminder of abuses
While the House Committee on Ethics rebuke to Whitfield was also an indirect rebuke to the Humane Legislative Fund and Humane Society of the U.S. campaign to strengthen regulation of the walking horse industry, it reminds the public once again of the abuse to horses which appears to be ubiquitous among top-ranked walking horse breeders and trainers.
The Horse Protection Act of 1970 was adopted to stop the use of “soring” potions and devices meant to induce the “big lick” high step, much resembling a Nazi goose step, prized by walking horse show judges.
Routinely flouted
The Horse Protection Act is, however, routinely flouted, with violations appearing to turn up practically anywhere that humane investigators look for them, albeit that criminal convictions for Horse Protection Act violations remain few.

Ariana Brown, daughter of former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown; Constance Harriman-Whitfield; and Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian.
(HSUS photo)
Friends of Sound Horses reported in 2015 that from 1988 through 2014, Tennessee walking horse trainers had been cited for 4,008 Horse Protection Act violations. Kentucky trainers had been cited for 1,625 violations, Alabama trainers for 787 violations, North Carolina trainers for 572 violations, and Mississippi trainers for 540 violations.
Constance Harriman-Whitfield
Congressman Whitfield did not have much history involving the walking horse industry before Constance Harriman-Whitfield took the position with the Humane Society Legislative Fund, following a long Washington D.C. career that included stints with the South Africa Wildlife Trust, Department of Justice, and as Assistant Secretary for Fish, Wildlife & Parks from 1989 to 1991. She married Whitfield in 1990, five years before he was elected to Congress.

(Merritt Clifton collage)
The walking horse industry is among the longtime economic engines of the perennially depressed mountain region, stretching the length of Kentucky and Tennessee, from western North Carolina and West Virginia to the Ozark hills of Arkansas.
Iconic
Within the Appalachians walking horse shows are as culturally iconic as cockfighting, coonhunting, and moonshine, perhaps a bit more iconic than bluegrass music since hippies took it up––and, because walking horses tend to be bred, bought, sold, and exhibited by rich and influential people, the walking horse industry tends to enjoy almost the level of political protection that surrounds coal mining.
Whitfield rarely if ever fought the coal industry, but appears to have become emboldened in addressing the abuse of walking horses after the Humane Society of the U.S. in May 2012 released undercover video of then-Tennessee Walking Horse Hall of Fame trainer Jackie McConnell and two of his employees soring a horse at his stable in Collierville, Tennessee.

Images from HSUS video of abuses for which trainer Jackie McConnell was convicted.
Criminal conviction
All three men were convicted of federal charges. McConnell, the first person to receive criminal penalties under the Horse Protection Act, was expelled from the Tennessee Walking Horse Hall of Fame, was fined $75,000, and was sentenced to serve three years on probation.
Whitfield may further have found political courage after walking horse advocate and Kentucky state senator Robin Webb, a Democrat, was cited for two soring violations at the North Carolina Walking Horse Association championships in October 2012.

What a walking horse gait looks like without artificial “action devices” and soring. (Beth Clifton photo)
The Whitfield Amendment
Whitfield in April 2013 introduced an amendment to reinforce the Horse Protection Act which would have forbidden all use of “performance devices” to enhance “big lick” gaits; would have replaced industry self-policing with USDA inspection; and would have increased the penalties for Horse Protection Act violations.
The Whitfield Amendment attracted 230 House co-sponsors, but died in committee. The amendment did, however, appear to stimulate Horse Protection Act enforcement during the balance of 2013.

(USDA-APHIS photo)
Larry Joe Wheelon
In May 2013, for example, “After a year-long investigation, the Blount County SPCA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and other animal protection groups in May 2013 executed a search warrant at [Larry Joe] Wheelon’s Maryville stables,” recalled Heidi Hall of the Nashville Tennessean.
“Wheelon was cited by the USDA for violating the federal Horse Protection Act at least 15 times between 1993 and 2012,” recalled Roy Exum of The Chattanoogan, “but his arrest [on the state charges] was the first in Tennessee since horse abuse became a felony,” in July 2012.
Blount County SPCA investigator and former police officer Kellie Bachman testified that inside the stables, “The horses were down, they were moaning, they were casting themselves, their legs were all wrapped. It was brutal.”

Chains allegedly used to make walking horses high-step.
(USDA-APHIS photo)
Walked on technicality
But the case against Wheelon collapsed on August 15, 2013, due to “an apparent breakdown in communication among federal agents,” reported Iva Butler of the Maryville Daily Times. “The essential witness was USDA veterinary medical officer Bart Sutherland, of Washington, D.C., who performed the testing and palpitated the horses for soreness on the day of the raid. He was not allowed to testify because he accidentally sat in the courtroom for 30 minutes during testimony.”

Trainer Larry Joe Wheelon, stable workers Randall Stacy Gunter and Brandon Randall Lunsford, and farrier Blake T. Primm were charged in 2013 for allegedly “soring” walking horses, but the charges were dismissed in 2015.
Boarded during the federal proceedings by the Humane Society of the U.S. at an undisclosed location, the 19 horses seized from Wheelon’s barn were returned to him in four different groups between October 16 and November 6, 2013.
Walked again on state charges
As result of the same investigation, a Blount County grand jury in December 2013 indicted Wheelon and stable workers Randall Stacy Gunter and Brandon Randall Lunsford on 18 counts each of aggravated cruelty to livestock animals and conspiracy to commit the cruelty.
Farrier Blake T. Primm was indicted for one felony cruelty count and one misdemeanor conspiracy count, both involving the same horse.
But Blount County Circuit Judge Tammy Harrington dismissed those charges in May 2015, ruling, Exum summarized, “that some ‘undercover’ visits by a federal agent before the [April 2013 search] warrant was issued violated Wheelon’s rights and said there were also some credibility issues with an affidavit that supported the search warrant.”
Exhibitors resisted enforcement
The SHOW Horse Industry Organization meanwhile resisted enforcing a strengthened set of USDA-recommended minimum penalties for Horse Protection Act violations almost to the opening ceremonies of the 2013 Celebration.
The minimum penalties prescribe that any violation of the Horse Protection Act that requires a suspension of a horse is also to bring the suspension of the horse’s owner, manager, trainer, rider, custodian, and seller, following a notification and appeals process that permits each accused individual to contest the charges. If the offense is a bilateral sore, the transporter is also to be suspended, after going through the same due process.
Penalties for Horse Protection Act violations were formerly erased from trainers’ records after their suspensions were served. Violation records are now permanent.
SHOW-HIO and other walking horse industry organizations sued seeking to overturn the new minimum penalties, but the penalties and the USDA enforcement procedure were on July 30, 2013 upheld by the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas in Fort Worth.
“No incentive to breed”
Following the 2013 Shelbyville Celebration, SHOW-HIO announced that of 2,087 horses inspected before and after exhibition, “only” 31 violations were discovered, involving 30 horses, down from 56 horses disqualified in 2012.
The 2013 Celebration was barely over, reported Jason Reynolds of the Shelbyville Times-Gazette, before Celebration chief executive Mike Inman and other walking horse industry leaders headed to Washington D.C. “to push alternative legislation to the Whitfield Amendment” proposed by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky.)

Beth & Merritt Clifton
Should the Whitfield Amendment pass, Inman told Reynolds, “There would be no incentive to breed show horses.”
In the end, no new legislation was adopted.
I have no concern for the Whitfields making a ‘mistake’…what I have concern for are the horses these two people are trying to spare from excruciating pain and cruelty…they have my full support…
I simply cannot digest the total crap I just read about the insane cruelty, labeled “soring,” not being prosecuted!! Dropped because a vet sat in the courtroom for 30 minutes? Seriously!! Are you kidding me? I am a horse owner. This insane treatment is sickening to me. What happened to legal ethics and punishment for the felony of animal abuse? I firmly believe the punishment should fit the crime!! Jackie McConnell should have his feet made raw, soaked in corrosive caustic chemical fluids, wrapped to hold in heat and cook the meat. Then more acidic stuff applied to raw feet. Place chains over the raw meat and forced to run around the ring with an idiot-looking ass on his back. Then when he is allowed to go to his stall, beat the living hell out of him until he is bloody and in complete submission!!..Now, that is horse justice!! I would do this to anyone who supports this procedure in any way and then ask if they still feel that this treatment of the innocent is acceptable!
I couldn’t agree more…how do things like this even happen? Who thinks up things like this? Every single person involved in this soring BS should be made to suffer the same thing, and that includes the ones who stand by and ALLOW it to happen!!!
I agree totally with your article, and, I am 100% against the “Big Lick” however, I’m 100% for getting facts straight; Wayne Edward “Ed” Whitfield is the U.S. Representative of Kentucky’s 1st congressional district, serving since 1995. He is a member of the Republican Party. Whitfield was born in Hopkinsville, Ky. The 1st Congressional District is located in Western Kentucky, the district takes in Henderson, Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Paducah, and the college town of Murray. The article attached leads of with, quote, “What does it take to get a Republican Congressional Representative from Appalachia,. . .” Whitfield was not born in one, nor is he a Representative of, any Appalachian counties in Kentucky. I’m not defending anyone, but he has nothing to do with the Appalachian Region of my state. Whoever wrote the article should not attribute him, nor “Big Lick”, solely to the Appalachian Region of Kentucky. Mitch McConnel is another one who turns a blind eye to the abuse in Kentucky.. I grew up around it, as I had extended family who competed and there were always shows at the fairs, so I’d watched the shows as a child but didn’t quite “get” it, until I finally got my own TWH mare. I couldn’t do it to her when I found out what you had to do to make them walk like that.. I was 13 and knew it was wrong. So, I just had fun riding around our farm. That was nearly 40 years ago. She, and two more, are buried on the family farm here. If I got it, at age 13, other kids will get it too. Educating the young people, and thereby emptying the stands, and ultimately the ring, is the way it will finally end “Big Lick”.. The politicians will do nothing. jmo
Wikipedia includes an extensive discussion of how exactly the term “Appalachian region” may be defined. In geologic terms the Appalachians extend from several small islands off the east coast of Canada to the Mississippi River. Cultural reference is much more limited, but––outside of Kentucky––typically includes the whole of Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia, as well as western North Carolina and parts of many other states.
Over years of receiving/reading reports on which people of which party vote for and against which issues involving animals and the environment, I have found woefully few Republicans who vote pro-animal and/or pro-environment (and yes, I’m painfully aware that those two camps are often at odds with one another). Rep. Whitfield was a credit to his State and his country and it is regrettable that he should be leaving office.
This is a great article; Inman’s final comment, essentially that without horse torture there would be no “incentive to breed,” says it all.
While living in that region for over 22 years I attended a walking horse show, having no notion of what to expect. Watching these amazing horses moving swiftly while their back end is radically (and unnaturally) lower than the front due to the extreme elevation of their front feet that creates this unnatural gait (the height of the “step” is what is unnatural, not the pattern of footfall itself), is akin to seeing people who have been intentionally crippled and are then forced to run with their knees permanently bent under penalty of a whip. Horses show pain on their faces, particularly in their eyes; to see animals in pain just visit a walking horse show. To see crass, stupid, self aggrandized, “kill-in-order-to-win” rednecks, visit the same show.
The context is as disgusting as the activity…for example, watch the men on horseback who garner their black suits and top hats with garish red and orange feathers, faces dull, the whole thing screams of a lack of education, compassion or decency. To see child abuse, human drug abuse, domestic cruelty, visit the camping/living areas at these multi-day horse abuse events. Family entertainment…hardly.
This sick aberration of common decency and stewardship is not something that Appalachia can take any pride in; and in fact does not represent most people who live there. Many people with Tennessee Walking Horses do not compete in this sick debauchery. The horrific case against Wheelon spotlights this industry well and the corrupt decision by Blount County Circuit Judge Tammy Harrington spotlights why this sick industry still exists. I wonder if she received goods, or just friendship, for that incredibly spineless decision.