Making the Gait: The Story of the Tennessee Walking Horse.   In the name of competition, the high-stepping Tennessee Walking Horse show horse has suffered too much, for too long. For the first time in the history of the breed, well-known trainers and owners—some of them past abusers—have come forward to tell their stories. These are inspiring stories about horses that have been saved, and horse enthusiasts who dare to defy the Tennessee Mafia.

To win in the show ring, sore-horse trainers are willing to experiment with all manner of abuse to produce the coveted Big Lick; to make the gait. Soring is a dirty business based on an illegal practice. In the late nineteen-fifties and early sixties, abuse spread across Tennessee like the plague. Through the application of toxic chemicals, painful shoeing, and heavy chains worn over sore pasterns, Tennessee Walking Horse trainers perfected the vaunted Big Lick show gait. Soring was openly practiced in the fifties and sixties. During high-speed Big Lick show classes, blood from abused pasterns splattered across arena walls. The gentle, kind-hearted Tennessee Walking Horse is one of the few breeds that will tolerate such abuse while pressing forward in response to its riders bidding.

In nineteen-seventy, Congress passed the Horse Protection Act, specifically designed to protect the Tennessee Walking Horse. Nothing changed for the horse. The only thing that changed for the Tennessee Walking Horse industry was the added sport of defying an invasive Northern law that had little to do with a long-standing Southern tradition.

A general attitude of justified defiance, not unlike the ideology of the Klu Klux Klan, settled into the minds of belligerent owners and trainers who were not about to change their way of life. They are called the Tennessee Mafia, and to this day they continue to threaten violence to maintain their grip on Middle Tennessee.

As he enters today’s show ring a sored Tennessee Walking Horse appears to float in a gait that is virtually other-worldly. He moves in a manner that defies an equine’s normal range of motion. Experts agree it is a gait that can only be created through pain. Though soring is practiced in other divisions, the big gait, the one that brings in the crowds, is known as the Big Lick.

As the list of Horse Protection Act violators will attest, small stables and backyard trainers in Tennessee and across the nation continue to sore their horses with varying degrees of success. In this effort to bring the plight of the sored Tennessee Walking Horse to a broader audience, owners and trainers intimately familiar with the tragedy of the sored horse, share their experiences. If we pass the word, if we all work together, the beleaguered Tennessee Walking Horse will one day walk free.