Soring is the unethical and illegal practice of deliberately inflicting pain to exaggerate the leg motion of gaited horses, called the “big lick,” to gain an unfair advantage in the show ring. It involves the intentional infliction of pain to a horses legs or hooves in order to force the horse to perform an artificial, exaggerated gait. Soring can be done by irritating or blistering the horses forelegs through the injection or application of chemical irritants or painful mechanical devices. Some of the methods used include grinding down the sole of the hoof to expose the spongy, sensitive tissues underneath the sole, inserting hard objects between the pads and the sole to place pressure on this sensitive area of the hoof, and cutting a horses hoof almost to the quick and tightly nailing on a shoe or standing a horse for hours with the sensitive part of his soles on a block or other raised object. Soring has been a common and widespread practice in the Tennessee walking horse show industry for decades. Tennessee Walking Horses commonly suffer from the practice of soring, and other gaited breeds, such as Racking Horses, Spotted Saddle Horses, Rocky Mountain Horses, and Missouri Fox-Trotters, may also suffer from soring. Soring is illegal and punishable by fines and imprisonment under the Horse Protection Act of 1970.