Monday, October 02, 2006

Frist no friend to horses

Image courtesy of Stablemade Equine Photos Gallery



We knew about the cat vivisection in Bill Frist's past--although I did not have a clear picture of just how heinous this was until I read this post at Talk2Action last night. In the same article, I learned that Frist is trying to roll back protections against the cruel practice of "soring" in the Tennessee Walking Horse competitions. From the article I referenced above:

To make the horses step higher (and get scored higher), the horses are injected with or rubbed with caustic or blistering agents or they are deliberately mis-shoed so that it's physically painful for the horse to put pressure on his hooves.
...
Not only is soring inherently cruel, it's also the equivalent (in the horse fancy) of shooting up with steroids in prep for a Big Game. It's not fair play, and it's harmful to the horses; however, soring still occurs partly because stud fees for champion show horses are comparable to those for Kentucky Derby winners (read: you could retire, VERY comfortably).

As it turns out, Frist has a long relationship with the show industry:

A political action committee (PAC) made up of Tennessee Walking Horse breeders has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), among others.

Statistics compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show that in 1998, the PAC contributed $40,500 to congressional candidates, and additional contributions were made by individuals from the Walking Horse industry.


And as a result--in large part to help out his friends in the show-horse industry, including the Tennessee Walker Celebration show that ended up so racked in controversy that it shut down after most of its horses were disqualified--he's now wanting to neuter the federal ban against soring of horses, presumably so that other horse shows don't get shut down.
Read the whole diary here. Bill Frist is not a nice man.

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