WSMV-TV: Horse barn owner addresses accusations of illegal soring

(August 31, 2015 | WSMV-TV) The owner of a Murfreesboro horse barn that was targeted last week for illegal soring spoke to Channel 4 on Monday. Duke Thorson, owner of ThorSport Farm, addressed the video clips released last week and responded to allegations by the Humane Society of the United States that his trainers have been illegally soring Tennessee walking horses. Thorson invited Channel 4 to the stables on Monday.

“They’re using us as basically their poster child to get a lot of hype,” Thorson said.

One video clip shows a horse named Play Something Country lying in the floor of a stall. While Thorson said the video is authentic, he said the sounds of the horse wailing are not what they’re made out to be. “What they’re wanting you to believe is that the horse is in pain,” Thorson said. “What the horse is doing is snoring or moaning in its sleep.” 

...The three horses that were specifically mentioned in the Humane Society’s release have been inspected by three outside veterinarians. One of those was Steven Mullins with Equine Services.

“They were in perfectly good, healthy condition,” Mullins said. “Very healthy, in fact. And we found them to be in compliance with the Horse Protection Act.” Mullins said though soring still exists within the walking horse community, the clips don’t show anything unusual outside the normal care of horses. “You can take a video of a person going around a routine day, and if you edit it carefully enough, you can make them look to be something that they aren’t,” he said.

Watch video and read the full story at www.WSMV.com.