Horse Protection Amendments

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE <SUBAGY>Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service</SUBAGY> <CFR>9 CFR Part 11</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. APHIS-2022-0004]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0579-AE70</RIN> <SUBJECT>Horse Protection Amendments</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, USDA. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> We are amending the horse protection regulations to provide that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will screen, train, and authorize qualified persons for appointment by the management of any horse show, horse exhibition, or horse sale or auction to detect and diagnose soring at such events for the purposes of enforcing the Horse Protection Act. These and other regulatory amendments will strengthen the Agency's efforts to protect horses from the cruel and inhumane practice of soring as the Act requires and by so doing eliminate unfair competition. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective on February 1, 2025, except for § 11.19, which is effective June 7, 2024. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Dr. Aaron Rhyner, DVM, Assistant Director, USDA-APHIS-Animal Care, 2150 Centre Ave., Building B, Mailstop 3W11, Fort Collins, CO 80526-8117; <E T="03">horseprotection@usda.gov;</E> (970) 494-7484. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Under the Horse Protection Act (HPA, or the Act, 15 U.S.C. 1821 <E T="03">et seq.</E> ), the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to promulgate regulations to prohibit the movement, showing, exhibition, or sale of sore horses. The Secretary has delegated responsibility for administering the Act to the Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Within APHIS, the responsibility for administering the Act has been delegated to the Deputy Administrator for Animal Care. Regulations and standards established under the Act are contained in 9 CFR part 11 (referred to below as the Horse Protection regulations or just the regulations), and 9 CFR part 12 lists the rules of practice governing administrative proceedings. Section 2 of the Act, “Definitions” (15 U.S.C. 1821(3)), defines a “sore” horse as follows: “The term `sore' when used to describe a horse means that: (A) An irritating or blistering agent has been applied, internally or externally, by a person to any limb of a horse, (B) Any burn, cut, or laceration has been inflicted by a person on any limb of a horse, (C) Any tack, nail, screw, or chemical agent has been injected by a person into or used by a person on any limb of a horse, or (D) Any other substance or device  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> has been used by a person on any limb of a horse or a person has engaged in a practice involving a horse, and, as a result of such application, infliction, injection, use, or practice, such horse suffers, or can reasonably be expected to suffer, physical pain or distress, inflammation, or lameness when walking, trotting, or otherwise moving, except that such term does not include such an application, infliction, injection, use, or practice in connection with the therapeutic treatment of a horse by or under the supervision of a person licensed to practice veterinary medicine in the State in which such treatment was given.” <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  We interpret “device” to include chains, which are commonly placed on the limbs of Performance division Tennessee Walking Horses and racking horses when competing in shows. The association of chains with devices has been included in the regulations since 1979: “General Prohibitions” (§ 11.2(a)) states that, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (b), “. . . no chain, boot, roller, collar, action device, <E T="03">nor any other device</E> . . . shall be used. . . .” [our emphasis]. </FTNT> Soring has been used almost exclusively in the training of certain Tennessee Walking Horses and racking horses  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> to induce pain, resulting in an exaggerated gait that is valued in the show ring. However, the HPA's prohibition against sored horses participating in shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions extends to events involving all horse breeds. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> In addition to declaring that the soring of horses is cruel and inhumane, Congress further found that the movement, showing, exhibition, or sale of sore horses in intrastate commerce adversely affects and burdens interstate and foreign commerce and creates unfair competition. <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The racking horse is a breed derived from the Tennessee Walking Horse. It has a smooth, natural gait known as the “rack,” a four-beat gait with only one foot striking the ground at a time. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Records of non-compliance with the HPA's soring prohibition is rare in breeds other than the Tennessee Walking Horse and racking horse. APHIS nonetheless conducts occasional inspections and investigates other breed activity, and keeps records of any such noncompliance. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background of HPA Regulations</HD> Under the HPA, it is unlawful for any person to show, exhibit, sell, or transport sore horses, or to use any prohibited equipment, device, paraphernalia, or substance in horse shows, exhibitions, sales, or auctions. The HPA holds horse owners responsible should they allow any such unlawful activities to occur, and requires management of horse shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions (referred to as “management” or “event management,” below) to ensure that sore horses do not compete or otherwise participate in these events. After Congress passed the HPA in 1970, APHIS established regulations to enforce the Act, including restrictions on the use of certain equipment, devices, and substances. In accordance with the Act, the regulations also include inspection provisions for detecting soring in horses at shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions. In 1976, Congress amended the Act  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> to allow (but not require) the management of any horse show, exhibition, or sale or auction to appoint persons qualified to inspect horses for soreness. Section 4 (15 U.S.C 1823(c)) requires the Secretary of Agriculture to prescribe by regulation requirements for any appointment by the management of a horse show, exhibition, sale, or auction of persons qualified to detect and diagnose a horse which is sore or to otherwise inspect horses for the purpose of enforcing the Act. Although the Act does not require that management appoint a qualified person to inspect horses, if management chooses not to do so it can be held liable for violating the Act if it fails to disqualify a sore horse from participating in an event. If, alternatively, event management appoints a qualified person to conduct inspections, management may be held liable only for failing to disqualify a sore horse after being notified by the qualified person or by the Secretary of Agriculture, or his or her designee, that a horse is sore. <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Public Law 94-360, section 3, July 13, 1976, 90 Stat. 915; <E T="03">https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-90/pdf/STATUTE-90-Pg915.pdf.</E> </FTNT> Responding to Congress's 1976 amendment to the Act, APHIS revised the regulations (44 FR 1558-1566, January 5, 1979) to include qualifications for “Designated Qualified Persons,” or DQPs, to serve as third-party inspectors employed and compensated by the industry, as well as provisions for certifying industry-run programs to train and license DQPs. Prior to this final rule, these training and licensing programs were administered by Horse Industry Organizations, or HIOs. HIOs have historically filled several roles, both unregulated and regulated, for horse shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions. For example, event management sometimes retains an HIO to assist with activities not regulated under the Act, such as registering participants and coordinating event logistics, supplying show judges, and promoting events. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Regulated HIO activities, in addition to training and licensing DQPs, included reporting disciplinary actions against exhibitors, event management, and DQPs to APHIS. Under the previous regulatory regime, an HIO seeking certification to train and license DQPs was required to submit to APHIS a formal request in writing for certification of its DQP program and a detailed outline of the program. <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  HIOs may continue conducting such unregulated activities under the new regulatory scheme. </FTNT> Under the Horse Protection program prior to promulgation of this final rule, DQPs were the primary party responsible for inspecting and diagnosing soreness in horses participating in horse shows, exhibitions, auctions, or sales. A DQP was a qualified person who, under the provisions of 15 U.S.C 1823(c) cited above, could be appointed by management of a horse show or sale to detect horses that are sored, and to otherwise conduct inspections for the purpose of enforcing the Act. DQPs were reimbursed for services directly by event management or by an HIO contracting with the DQPs to provide inspections for events. DQPs were required to have equine experience and meet professional qualifications as set forth in the regulations. DQP candidates also had to successfully complete a formal training program developed and delivered by the HIO before they could be licensed, except that veterinarians already accredited by USDA were able to be licensed as DQPs without having to participate in formal training. Such veterinarians also had to be either a member of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, or a large animal practitioner with substantial equine experience, or be, based on ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 439k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━