Roy Exum: Soring Will Still Thrive

  • Monday, July 29, 2019
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

It was in the summer, 2012, when my bubble was burst. I was 63 years old, intensely patriotic, and believed – 100 percent – that our country, despite its flaws and misfits, was the greatest of all of the other countries, and that’s combined, on planet Earth. But that particular summer I learned our Congress and our Senate could be bought for next to nothing, and that our country was a willing partner in the most sickening form of animal abuse known to man for far less than … oh, 30 pieces of silver.

It started, so help, when I heard a low-life by the name of Jackie O’Connell was being brought to trial in our Federal Courthouse building.

The charge? Horse abuse. I didn’t know what “soring” was, nor would I have ever believed it took the horrendous torture of a Tennessee Walking Horse to produce a gait called “The Big Lick” in a horse-show ring.

My lone intent was that if “Jackie the Jerk” was indeed to stand before Judge Sandy Mattice, there were no laws on the books for him to get much more than a public reprimand and … well, I didn’t want anybody in our city to be polite to such vermin. This guy is a major sicko and, about the same time, the TV news show, Nightline, came out with an undercover tape of this Hall of Fame figure who was well-entrenched in the dirty side absolutely beating a show horse to death.

Brother, not on my watch. The next thing I know I had uncorked the lid on such depravity and I wrote dozens upon dozens of stories about the Shelbyville cesspool. The Humane Society of the United States named me as “The Horseman of the Year” in 1912 and I’d never owned a horse. What’s more, at last count I have had seven Walkers named for me and have taken four telephone messages from cowards who swore I would be dead by sundown.

I was the dirty lick’s “Enemy Number One” by exposing the bums who, in turn, would order their $5-an-hour stable punks to apply acid to a horse’s forelegs, drive a bolt through the pastern of front hooves, and burn the lips of a horse – beating the animal all the while, if it showed any pain during a USDA inspection for soring.

As nauseating and sadistic and deadly as soring is (the shocking number of Walkers who die in less than half of their lifetimes from “colic” – but only in Tennessee -- is one of the great veterinary mysteries of all time) lord, it would make the most sanctimonious preacher hit one of these thugs, not just once, either.

The Walking Horse industry has about destroyed itself. “Clean” trainers say they are ridiculed because of the dirty lick, when they would never commit such an atrocity. Horse farms around Shelbyville are still offered at bargain-basement steals, and the last to hang on are not welcomed into genuine horse circles. No, the Walking Horse is still the most wonderful ride in the equine kingdom but the soring will persist as long as there is one cheater who’ll get another to “ … Hey, watch this!”

Last week, after four tries having been blocked every year in Congress to “Prevent All Soring Tactics,” the PAST Act made it through Congress in a rousing “beat your chest” fashion. Where it takes a two-thirds vote to proceed to the Senate, Congress voted 333-96 on the bill (HR693). Oh happy day! That was the overwhelming response after the House of Representatives roll call on Thursday.

Then we go to Skopos Labs, a firm that claims they are experts in “automated predictive intelligence” to learn … what’s this? The Senate bill for the PAST Act has 40 co-sponsors which doesn’t mean diddley. When House Bill HR693 came to a vote last week, among the 96 members of Congress who voted against it were Tennessee Republicans Phil Roe, Chuck Fleischmann, Scott DesJarlais, John Ross, Mark Green, and Davis Kustoff. Isn’t that peculiar? As a matter of fact, the Tennessee “bloc” has long embraced the “dirty lickers” with the lone exemption being Tim Burchett.

Tennessee’s two Senators are far worse. Years ago Lamar Alexander got saddled up with Steven B. Smith who agreed to be the treasurer of his campaign. Hello! Steven B. is the head of the dirty lickers and there is vivid proof that Lamar and Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell have accepted hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from the dirty lickers.

Chuck Fleischmann and Scott DesJarlais have also been generously awarded by dirty lick contributors. A cross match of dirty lick contributors who “support” Chuck and Scott will make you start laughing. But, in my opinion, the all-time Queen of Dirty-Lick Corruption is our newest Senator, Marsha Blackburn. 

Marsha has accepted more “benevolence” from the dirty lick than you would believe, and, when you track her government-mandated financial disclosures from the time she was first elected to the House until she began her impassioned role as a Senator, her investment prowess boggles the mind. I’m talking nothing short of genius on a Congress woman’s pay.

Don’t you see? I thought the upper reaches of the United States Congress and Senate were beyond reproach. Several years ago the law enforcement officers in Maryville, Tn., where there is a Lamar Alexander Boulevard, caught a known dirty licker – Larry Joe Wheelon – at his worst. There were photographs, testimony, irrefutable evidence and … hello … Larry Joe never went to trial.

Blessed with such a den full of elected representatives, do you in your wildest dreams think the PAST Act will get through the Senate? I’ve been following the charade like a bloodhound but with Alexander, Blackburn, and McConnell lusting for the day they can once again champion the torture of horses, neither the Senate bill nor humane horse-sense stands a cut dog’s chance.

royexum@aol.com

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