Protecting Horses from Soring Act of 2025
Latest action. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Protecting Horses from Soring Act of 2025
This bill establishes requirements to prevent the practice of soring horses at horse events (i.e., shows, exhibitions, sales, or auctions), including by requiring soring inspections to be overseen by a new organization that is formally affiliated with the horse event industry. Generally, the soring of horses includes certain actions taken on horses' limbs to produce higher gaits that may cause pain, distress, inflammation, or lameness.
The bill directs the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the Department of Agriculture to establish the organization. The organization must be governed by a board that is appointed by the walking horse industry. The organization must appoint inspectors for each horse event and license, train, and oversee inspectors to detect soring at horse events.
The bill also directs the management of horse events to disqualify horses for specified durations if the horses are determined to be sore by objective inspections conducted by veterinarians or veterinarian technicians using certain science-based protocols.
Currently, inspectors must be designated by the management of horse events and licensed by APHIS-certified horse industry organizations. However, an APHIS rule issued in 2024 established several requirements to increase efforts to protect horses from soring practices, including requiring inspectors to be designated by APHIS. In 2025, a court upheld the parts of the rule requiring APHIS-designated inspectors but vacated other parts of the rule relating to other requirements. APHIS subsequently delayed the effective date of the rule to December 31, 2026.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on February 27, 2025. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on February 27, 2025: Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the House
- Passage by the Senate
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 118th Congress (2023-24), 274 of the 16,565 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 1.7 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) introduced it on February 27, 2025, and 1 member has since signed on as a cosponsor.
They are 1 Republican.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on February 27, 2025, 560 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 560 days ago, on February 27, 2025.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 119th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2027 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- HouseIn committee, no floor vote yet
- SenateAwaits House passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers