High profile Tennessee Walking Horse trainer Jackie McConnell has pleaded guilty to a federal charge that he violated the Horse Protection Act (HPA) by soring horses.

In February, a federal grand jury in Tennessee handed down a 52-count indictment accusing McConnell and three other individuals–Jeff Dockery, John Mays, and Joseph R. Abernathy–of conspiring to violate the HPA by applying prohibited substances, such as mustard oil, to the pastern area of Tennessee Walking Horses to achieve an exaggerated high-stepping gait. The indictment also described the methods allegedly used to sore the horses, to train them not to react to pain in their feet by causing pain elsewhere, and to otherwise mask evidence of soring.

Sharry Dedman-Beard, public information officer for the U.S State’s Attorney’s Office, Eastern Tennessee District said that on May 22, McConnell, Mays, and Abernathy appeared in U.S. District Court, in Chattanooga, Tenn., where under plea agreements, they pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the HPA in various ways. Charges against Dockery remain pending, Dedman-Beard said.

According to the plea agreements on file with the U.S. District Court in Chattanooga, McConnell admitted that he conspired with Mays, Abernathy, and others to violate the HPA by applying banned chemicals to horses’ pasterns and taking steps to camouflage signs of soring. McConnell also admitted that while he was on suspension for HPA violations and banned from training and showing horses, he falsified paperwork listing another person as the trainer of the sored horses and directed the horses’ exhibition from horse show venue grounds. As part of the plea agreement, McConnell forfeited to the United States his truck and trailer used to transport the horses