Soft drink maker
Pepsi said on Thursday that it was dropping sponsorship of a prestigious
national horse show, one day after ABC News broadcast footage of a
horse in training for a show being beaten by a trainer.
The Walking Horse National
Celebration said that Pepsi had been a sponsor since 2010 of the
nation's leading competition for Tennessee Walking Horses, a breed known
for its high-stepping gait.
"We have ended our sponsorship of the event," Pepsi spokesman Vincent Bozek said on Thursday without elaborating.
Neither Pepsi nor
officials of the horse show would confirm the reason for the
cancellation of the sponsorship. But an expert on the Tennessee Walking
Horse show circuit, who asked not to be identified, said he believed it
was because of the ABC News report, which showed an abusive practice
known as "soring."
The Humane Society of the
United States conducted an undercover investigation and filmed the video
which was given to ABC News and broadcast, said Keith Dane, the
society's director of equine protection.
An animal rights activist
went to work in a horse barn and secretly taped the abuse in March and
April, 2011. It shows the horses being beaten with wooden sticks and
poked with electric cattle prods. The horses' ankles were slathered with
caustic chemicals and ankles wrapped with plastic to amplify the pain.
The chemicals induce pain and cause the horse to raise its front legs high while in the show ring.
Soring has been such a
pervasive practice among Tennessee Walking Horse trainers that in 2009
the industry set up an organization and hired veterinarians to tour
shows and inspect the horses.
Dr. Stephen Mullins, president of SHOW, the organization that inspects the horses, said he was disgusted by the video.
"For any animal to be abused like that ... I totally disagree with that," Mullins said.
The Humane Society video was the latest example of the
organization going undercover to expose alleged animal abuse. Animal
rights groups have used undercover investigations to film practices such
as chickens in small cages, diseased cattle dragged by tractors while
they are still alive, sows confined in crates. Their aim is to force
changes in farming and show practices.
Their efforts have prompted egg producers to agree to an
increase in the size of cages, and some major buyers of pork recently
said they would no longer buy from farms which confining mother sows in
crates.
But the undercover operations also have prompted a backlash
from some farm state lawmakers, who have passed laws to make it a
criminal offense to infiltrate an agricultural business.
The Humane Society's Dane
said the group decided to go undercover in the horse barn because the
Tennessee Walking Horse industry's self-policing of the practice of
"soring" was not working. He applauded the Pepsi decision, which he said
might help clean up the industry.
"This procedure of soring has been going on far too long ...
the industry itself has been allowed to self-police and with very poor
results," Dane said.
The chief executive of the
Walking Horse National Celebration, Doyle Meadows, said in a statement:
"The Celebration has worked extremely hard over recent years to gain
the trust of our corporate partners and we would do nothing to destroy
that relationship. As the Celebration moves forward to promote a sound
horse we hope that everyone will assist in our efforts to promote this
magnificent breed."
The Walking Horse National Celebration takes place every summer in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Continue Reading
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