By RONNIE ELLIS
FRANKFORT — Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, understands the emphasis on and notoriety of Kentucky’s “signature” thoroughbred horse industry. She wants others to understand that other breeds are part of the industry – quarter horses, saddlebreds and especially for her, walking horses.
Webb this week filed a bill to create an Equine Breed Authority, which would include representatives from all those and other breeds of horses, a move she sees as an effort to “achieve some parity” with the thoroughbred industry.
Webb filed the bill at a time the existing racing commission is looking at how walking horses and shows which receive state funds are inspected. The commission last month questioned Kentucky Walking Horse Association representatives about training methods, including “soring” or intentionally injuring the horse’s hooves to make the horses walk with the distinctive, high stepping gait of walking horses and the circumstances surrounding a trainer and KWHA board member who admitted using banned substances on a horse which later was put down.
But Webb, who owns a walking horse and has bred and exhibited the horses since she was a teenager, said that had nothing to do with her decision to file the bill.
“I own a Tennessee Walking Horse. I’ve been an exhibitor, a breeder, an owner and a judge,” Webb said. She even rode for Morehead State University when the university had a walking horse team. She has won juvenile, state and world reserve championships and her late father, Dr. Robert Webb, was a one-time president of KWHA.
“It’s a fairness issue,” Webb said. “The racing commission has a pretty full plate.”
Webb said other horse breeds provide “so many people their living or it’s a hobby, but it’s an industry for so many people and I have some expertise in this area.” And the shows – often at county fairs – sometimes constitute the sponsoring organization’s only major fundraiser of the year.
“It has an economic impact and a charitable impact,” Webb said.
She said all breeds are supposed to share in state incentive funds – about $1.3 million for non-racing breeds two years ago – but the racing commission last year ruled only shows inspected by groups which oppose soring.
That’s not the problem some believe, Webb said – “The way the rules are now, there’s no soring.” But there have been disputes between exhibitors at horse shows and inspectors about the practice over the past year or so.
Her bill, if passed Webb said, would ensure that representatives of “all these breeds and ensure that they just have a say” in how incentives are distributed – rather than those decisions made by the thoroughbred dominated racing commission. But she’s open to other ways of dealing with the issue.
“If somebody’s got a better idea, show me,” she said.
RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com. Follow CNHI News Service stories on Twitter at www.twitter.com/cnhifrankfort.
