The Big Lick | Criminal Podcast | Forensic Files

foreign there once was a horse a Black Stallion named carbon copy carbon copy was a perfect model of the
Tennessee Walking Horse he knew voice commands and would respond to a whistle so people say he could take himself
around a ring to show off without anyone on his back carbon copy was the winner of the
stallion class of 1964. defeating 44 other top stallions he continued to beat every other horse
around and became the world champion that same year George Lee Lennox of Memphis Tennessee purchased carbon copy
and then George Lee Lennox was found dead they found his body slumped over in his
gold Cadillac the car was full of blood he'd been shot in the head two times a man came forward and confessed that
he'd been paid fifteen thousand dollars to kill George Lee Lennox along with two
accomplices the shooters identified themselves as members of the so-called Dixie Mafia and
it was widely speculated that the reason the Dixie Mafia wanted George Lee Lennox
dead was because George Lee Lennox had a problem with Tennessee Walking Horse tradition
almost 50 years later there are still those that have trouble with the way Tennessee walking horses are shown and
in particular one practice everyone denies today contributor Mary Helen Montgomery
tells us about an Open Secret that's torn families apart and sent people into hiding I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
[Music] Shelbyville Tennessee is known as The Walking Horse capital of the world the
Tennessee Walking Horse is so Central to the town's identity that there's a picture of one on the city seal on my
way into town I saw a stop sign that said whoa instead of stop as in the way you tell a horse to stop when you're
riding each summer the week before Labor Day there's a big competition just for Tennessee walking horses it's called the
Tennessee Walking Horse national celebration or just the celebration they've been doing it since 1939. it's
such a big event that all the schools in the county are canceled for the whole week so everyone can get ready for the
show I went to the Celebration with a woman who asked us not to use her name or to
record her voice because she's worried about her safety she's been in this world for a long time
and says not everyone gets along as well as they used to she parked her car close to the arena
under a light because she says she's been followed at horse shows before she thought my microphone would draw too
much attention so I just brought a small recorder in the celebration is not just a single
event it's an 11 day experience Tennessee Walking Horse owners arrived from all over the country and camp in
their trailers now I met one woman who had been coming since the first celebration in 1939. her
family doesn't even know much about horses they just love to be here for a lot of kids who grew up in this
part of the country the celebration was as good as Christmas my entire life is revolved around horses
and specifically Tennessee walking horses ice my family put me on the horse in the saddle with double-sided tape on
the saddle rubber bands around the stirrups and loop rain so that was basically stuck there this is Marty Irby
his dad is a Tennessee Walking Horse trainer so he's been going to the Celebration his whole life it's one of
my earliest memories probably the most vivid memory for my childhood I would have just turned five years old in 1984
standing in the middle of the Arena of the Tennessee Walking Horse national celebration I remember standing there
and looking around at the stadium of 30 000 people or whatever the number was somewhere about like that then and just
thinking that how amazing that was and that that's what I wanted I wanted to win that I wanted to be that person from
I guess sort of seeing that stardom aspect of it as a at an early age but the real stars of the celebration aren't
the writers they're the horses all those people descend on Shelbyville every year to see something only the
Tennessee Walking Horse does it's called The Big Lick if you've never seen the Big Lick you've
never seen a horse walk anything like this their whole bodies are at an angle with
their hind legs squatted toward the ground and their front legs bounding forward in huge arcs their Hooves almost
touching their heads it's almost like watching a cartoon horse prance Marty spent his childhood helping his
dad take care of big lit horses in the Stables talking to them loving them his favorites were named carbon princess
Mark's nut and honey Pride's ringleader another horse named High tones clown so I could go and there were there were
many of them and they were they were your best friends yeah they were they really were he grew up in South Alabama
and describes his childhood as a normal Mom and Dad happy family thing uh then sort of out of the blue uh one day my
father actually left us you have to picture 1985 in South Alabama and he left our family for another man the kids
at school found out and started bullying Marty um used to like have to run from school
when I left so the kids wouldn't beat me up because of my dad and that sort of thing so I knew I like lived every day
to go to the barn in the afternoon to sort of get away from everything else and talk to the horses and I guess I
just sort of felt like they understood me the barn was also the only place that Marty would get spend time with his
father and then one day his dad showed him how trainers got their horses to do the Big
Lick trainers always attach big heavy shoes to encourage the horse to lift its legs
High but there's a technique trainers use behind the scenes to get horses to exaggerate their gate even more it's
called soaring soaring is when a trainer puts caustic substances like mustard oil kerosene or
Croton oil onto the horse's front ankles and feet they wrap them in plastic and let the chemicals bake into the skin the
horse's flesh Burns until it's extremely sensitive then the trainer puts a chain around
each front ankle like a bracelet each time the chain hits the sore leg the horse throws their leg in the air in
sort of a way to get away from the pain so it'd be like if you were walking over
hot coals and stepping really high or something like that or you were walking across think of it as walking across
black hot asphalt barefooted you would want to like run really quick or separately high and you wouldn't want to
just put your foot on the ground so that's what each of these things achieves and the more that they seem to
add to it the higher that they step Marty's dad taught him how to soar on high tones clown one of Marty's favorite
horses yeah I remember the horse so he had white feet which is really interesting because white footed horses
tend to show irritation much more they have red skin or pink skin underneath and so you could use kerosene and Gojo
Gojo is that gritty industrial hand cleaner why the kerosene and Gojo like you put kerosene on first and then Gojo
or um no different things at different time it would it's a degree of soaring so kerosene would cause a horse to be
more sore than the Gojo so um I guess they have this method of uh they call it reminding the horse they're
sort of waking them up so the kerosene is stronger so in like the first of the week you would put the kerosene on the
horse's foot and as the week progressed you would you know sort of dial it down to putting Gojo which is uh less of an
irritant still an irritant you'd want to dial it down because before each show horses are checked for signs of soaring
the way athletes have to pass drug tests sometimes the inspections are performed
by the USDA sometimes by private contractors an inspector will touch a horse's legs with pressure to see if it
jerks or winces in pain trainers have been known to teach a sword horse to pass inspection by
beating it if it flinches over time the horse learns not to react to pain and the Tennessee Walking Horse which is
known for its docile personality takes it if you're caught soaring you can be fined thousands of dollars and even go
to prison soaring's been illegal since 1970 when Congress passed the horse protection act the horse protection act
says two things that soaring is cruel and inhumane and also that it's just not fair
when it comes to the Big Lick a sword horse has the advantage he was always worried about the horse's
white feet going into inspection in the pink skin and so he taught me how to use
Desitin which is uh I don't know if they still have that it's like a diaper rash
a cream a white cream and so after the horse had been soared and gone all this then you'd have to put the Desitin on
the horse's feet to take away the pink and the redness and to make him be able to pass through inspection
Marty would apologize to the horses petting them and telling them it was just the way it had to be he was 13
years old sometimes you hurt the people you love most in my case it just happened to be horses not people do you
think any part of it like had to do with your relationship with your father of how he was kind of
gone and then it was back and that was something you could do to make him proud yeah I would
definitely say so you know anyone probably seeks their father's approval but um you know he had sort of Left for
a while and read in the picture so that was the only time that I spent with my father was actually soaring horses and
riding sword horses by the time he was in his early 20s Marty was competing and he says doing
really well he had a horse named FDR he thought was good enough to win a world championship
so he sent FDR to Tennessee for training the thing to do if you're serious about
winning in Tennessee the trainers used soaring methods that Marty had never seen in his
dad's Barn I really didn't know to what degree they really do saw horses that went into that experience
the trainer in Tennessee put Croton oil on FDR an oil that's actually used on lab animals to study pain
other trainers would do a thing called pressure shoeing where they put half a golf ball or hardened putty between a
horse's foot and shoe to make it hurt when the horse put its foot down the Croton oil worked Marty and FDR won the
World Championship at the celebration in 2003. that's not quite a world grand championship the very top prize of the
celebration but it's close at this point Marty had moved to Tennessee and fully immersed himself in
the Walking Horse World he didn't exclusively ride Big Lick horses he also rode flat shot horses walking horses
without the big shoes and chains that hadn't been soared and at the 2006 celebration Marty won his division on a
flat shot horse 2006 is actually a year that the Walking Horse Community doesn't like to talk
about for the first time in the 68 years of the celebration the final and biggest
event was canceled because almost every horse was disqualified after investigators found signs of abuse
a crowd assembled and demanded that the disqualified horses be allowed to show the police were called The New York
Times describes an angry standoff between investigators and trainers trainers complained that the inspection
process was subjective and quote suffocating a long-standing tradition this didn't stop the Big Lick the next
year was back to business as usual Marty kept winning a lot of big titles and by
2011 he was the president of the main Organization for the Tennessee walking horses the Tennessee Walking Horse
breeders and exhibitors Association this is Ashley Foreman she remembers the day she met Marty we
were at a horse barn and he had a padded horse in training you know I was just standing on the side and he just comes
up and starts talking and you know I was like oh he's very interesting well 19 days
later we get married in Panama City we we had Big Dreams you know we were gonna open a barn together and
we we shared everything together um the love for The Walking Horses The the passion the drugs the the it
basically all revolved around the Tennessee Walking Horse he even bought her two horses a Big Lick horse and a
flat shot horse you know when he and I got married my mom was like you know you finally found what you were searching
for you found a guy who loves the walking horses as much as you do and I said I know like this is perfect and the
smile on his face you know it said it all like it was perfect and then it just it it got crazy
Ashley didn't know it but Marty had been secretly sharing information about soaring with investigators at the USDA
and the Humane Society for years he was having a crisis of conscience the Big Lick this thing he'd been part of
since he was a kid was getting a lot of bad press and now there's proof of what some
trainers are doing behind the scenes in Tennessee's beautiful horse country down
this Gravel Road caught on tape in this Barn an undercover video was released on
Nightline showing a man hitting a horse with a baton the horse is tied up and you can hear the clanking of its
restraints as it leaps up the report goes on to show trainers in the barn putting chemicals and chains on a
horse's legs the horses on the video appear to be in such great pain they often refuse to get up and are whipped
by the stable hands in other scenes McConnell and his stable hands use sticks and cattle prods in what the
humane society says is stewardy teaching the horse to stay still when inspectors
test for sensitivity to pants I actually happen to be when it came out in Winding
Germany judging a Walking Horse Show where all of the horses they don't allow any of this and they don't even clip the
horse's whiskers in Germany they would never allow Stacks or chains on their feet soaring or anything like that so I
sort of saw the world's reaction while being in a foreign country and you know my cell phone was going crazy and you
know I didn't even know this expose was coming out had no clue it was they didn't tell me or anything when that
video came out with the McConnell it's it's not right that's nowhere near what how a big like training Barn should be
Ashley found the Nightline video horrible but she says it's not at all representative of the Big Lick she loves
would be gone if people still soared because all of all of the things that get and into a show I mean get
flawed get checked it's a hard process I honestly think that if it still went on that people there would be more
people in trouble than what there is she says there are lots of ways to train for
the Big Lick that don't involve soaring and that she would never do anything to hurt her horses they're like my kids
place my animal s you know if their heart I'm hurt if they're sick I'm sick you know it's
something that you don't want your animal to go through in April of 2013 the same month Marty
and Ashley got married a new piece of legislation was introduced in Congress the prevent all soaring tactics act or
past act for short it would increase penalties and oversight and also expand the horse
protection act tackling not just soaring but making it illegal to exhibit a horse
if any device or material had been used to quote artificially alter a horse's gate in all likelihood the past act if
it got through would end the Big Lick forever and Marty decided it was time to take a
public stand and support it the thing that I had to get to I would have probably done all this sooner when I was
president but I knew that the day that it happened that my world was going to collapse I knew that my business was
going under I knew that my family I knew how they would react I didn't know to the degree they would react the Walking
Horse Association needed to vote whether to support the past act the association's support would be symbolic
and it would send a loud message even though so much was at stake Marty stood up before the board and explained
why he had changed his mind it was almost like the weight of the world was off my shoulders at all this years of
sort of baggage and secrecy and all these things that have to do with soaring and I mean they're just certain
times in life when they're a defining moment and that was a defining moment in my life Marty's father stopped speaking
to him and Ashley felt betrayed by the way he'd voted it it was it was insane I did try for a little bit to be
supportive but at the end of the day you know big licks are what I love and we were basically against each other no one
would do business with me anymore you know my business partners were extremely mad at me you know I basically said you
know it's either your marriage and me or you know support the horses like we always have or you're somebody that I
don't know and and that's why we got divorced [Music] having little left to lose that summer
Marty agreed to do an interview with The Tennessean Nashville's Daily newspaper he talked about why soaring needed to
end the story came out on the front page above the fold now people knew far and wide where he stood he started getting
letters of support from all over the country but he also started getting threats people would call him on block
numbers threatening to attack him saying things like they wanted to string him up
for not keeping his mouth shut he felt unsafe at home and went to hide out at a friend's house
she uh hid me out for about six weeks I guess you would say she lives in a place
that's about like Fort Knox she'd been an anti-soaring advocate for like 30 years she was one of the main leaders of
the anti-soaring movement The Hideout was a huge solid brick house surrounded by water on one side and a giant iron
fence on the other the woman helping him had stocked plenty of guns and ammunition just in case they
needed to defend themselves while he was holed up he reached out to the congressman who wrote the past act
Ed Whitfield a republican from Kentucky Whitfield asked Marty to come testify at
a congressional Hearing in D.C and Marty agreed after he testified he got even more
death threats from people back in Tennessee people he'd grown up with I at this point have lost everything family
money had to file bankruptcy lost my business pretty much just had you know two nickels to rub together and we were
welcomed by the congressman during that time to come stay at his house and stayed at his home in Washington DC and
during that time a job came open from the congressman in his office so he said well you're here
you don't have anything you've had all these death threats as a result of testifying all this stuff he said why
don't you just stay here Marty took that job with Congressman Whitfield working with farmers and agricultural groups
today Marty works for the Humane Society in Washington D.C he works in equine protection trying to
stop the soaring of walking horses and doping in racehorses the past act still hasn't become a law
but Marty says he's working on it after so many conversations about the Big Lick I was so curious to see it for
myself at the celebration when I called ahead to see if it would be difficult for me to get a ticket the
woman in the box office laughed at me the arena seats 30 000 people but when I went there were probably just a couple
thousand people in the stands my guide the woman who asked to be anonymous explain what we were looking
at I felt like we were undercover watching over our shoulders and talking and muffled voices
some of their butts are kind of swaying back and forth and some of them look like their legs are just going in every
direction [Music] I'm with says that you can tell which one's going to win if it looks the most uncomfortable and
unnatural and if it looks like it's working the hardest she told me that the horses that'll
score the highest are the ones with the most exaggerated oversized steps this year's winner the world grand
champion was a horse named Jen's black Maverick his trainer was Bill Calloway I was born into it Callaway told a local
paper I was born and raised in the horse business just after he won some news came out
documents show trainer Bill Calloway violated the federal horse protection act hours after winning the championship
Saturday the USDA suspended Callaway for eight months and fined him Callaway was actually caught soaring his
horses months before the celebration but for some reason he was allowed to compete anyway
his suspension didn't begin until after he'd won the championship he will be able to compete again next
spring [Music] Mary Helen Montgomery criminals produced by Lauren Spore Nadia Wilson and me audio mix by Johnny Vince
Evans and Rob Byers our intern is Matilda irfelino Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode
of Criminal you can see them at thisiscriminal.com where on Facebook and Twitter at criminal show
criminal is recorded in the studios of North Carolina public radio wunc we're a proud member of radiotopia from PRX a
collection of the best podcasts around radiotopia from PRX is supported by the Knight foundation and special thanks to
adserc for providing their ad serving platform to radiotopia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal
[Music] from PRX

The Tennessee Walking Horse has a natural gait that’s famously smooth. And, if trained in a certain way, it can perform a walk that’s even more spectacular, called the Big Lick. But, there’s a secret behind how, exactly, these horses are trained to do the crowd-pleasing step they’re celebrated for; it’s called “soring” and it’s been outlawed since the 1970’s. Still, some horse trainers still use the practice today in order to compete in the Big Lick.

When Marty Irby, president of the Tennessee Walking Horse Breeders’ and Exhibitors’ Association, spoke out against soring, he lost everything: business partners, his father, even his wife.

Mary Helen Montgomery brings us the story.

Music in the episode “Chrome and Wax” by Blue Dot Sessions “Quirk” by Blue Dot Sessions “The Mandrake (an original song for Criminal)” by Blue Dot Sessions “Anders” by Blue Dot Sessions “Front Runner” by Blue Dot Sessions “Soothe” by Blue Dot Sessions

Criminal is a show about people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle. Hosted by Phoebe Judge. Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

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Episode transcripts are posted on our website https://thisiscriminal.com/.

Episode 76 originally published 10/6/2017 https://thisiscriminal.com/episode-76-the-big-lick-10-5-2017

Brief Summary

Marty Irby reveals the dark truth behind Tennessee Walking Horses and his fight against the abusive practice of soaring.

Key points

The Rise of Carbon Copy. Carbon Copy, a Tennessee Walking Horse, became a champion in 1964, defeating 44 other stallions.
The Dark Side of the Big Lick. Marty reveals the cruel practice of soaring in the Tennessee Walking Horse community.
A Defining Moment. Marty's decision to support the PAST Act leads to personal and professional turmoil.
The Champion Horse. This year's winner was a horse named Jen's Black Maverick, trained by Bill Callaway.
Controversial Victory. Trainer Bill Callaway was suspended for violating horse protection laws after winning the championship.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Sometimes you hurt the people you love most.

Marty reflects on his relationship with horses and his father.

9:26WatchDec 16, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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