Shelby Dennis
speaker
575 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2026
last heard 4 Jun
Shelby Dennis’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 2.
Appearances
there isn't really any way around of like where that says your priorities are. It does say that riding is more of a priority than keeping the horse that you love. And in that case, I would argue that you do love the sport more than the horse, because if you loved the horse more, you wouldn't want to get rid of them. Like my dog needed knee surgery. I didn't just up and get rid of her because she's going to have arthritis in her knees now probably. I know.
Absolutely. And I think it's it's harder for people where it's like if you can only afford to have one horse, I understand that the struggle of that where it's like you kind of have to reframe your identity because you either have to find other means of riding horses that aren't yours or you need to reflect on yourself.
what's most important. And that's definitely been something that I've dealt with too, which like you said, it's like an ego death because a lot of us grow up being so horse obsessed, but then our obsession with horses is often really condensed into riding them. And that's how we're brought up from the time that we start riding, especially when we're kids, where the whole priority around how we're interacting with horses is all about riding them.
And then we don't really learn how to interact with them and enjoy them outside of riding. So you just show up to the barn for your riding lesson, you get on the horse and then you're riding and then you're leaving. You're not really seeing their life outside of riding and you're not really interacting with them very much outside of riding. So it's no wonder that we have an industry full of people that fundamentally don't really know how to relate to horses when they're not riding them.
to view things differently from a young age the horse world would be so different than what it is and it's a shame because i do think that generally speaking most horse people do mean well but their identity is so connected to how they train and handle horses that any criticism of that belief system feels like they are being personally attacked when really that's not what it is so like to anyone listening to this if you've ridden your two-year-old or
you've bought into this mindset this isn't a criticism of you as a person it's a discussion of how most of us have come to believe something that fundamentally is not true
And ultimately, in order to move past that and to do right by horses, we need to be open to that new information and not take it as a personal attack just because it's uncomfortable, because the information is going to be uncomfortable. It's viscerally uncomfortable to start to really reflect on how the horse industry is and what's driving it.
Absolutely. And I guess to kind of deviate a little bit from the racing industry, I would ask, like, do you hold the same type of perspective towards the young horse classes like we see with show jumpers and dressage horses? They're a little bit older than race horses, of course, but it still demands on the body where like the four year old classes for show jumpers, for example, they're jumping like three foot three to three six, which is quite a substantial size.
For sure. And I think the other thing too is like how people go about starting horses. Like even if you are starting at five or six, this idea of the 30 day start where you're taking a horse who's never done any of these things and going walk, trot, canter within four weeks. It like, I've started to look at it through the perspective of if you had a professional trainer at the gym and they just started making you work that hard within the span of that quick of time, you would, you would get injured. Like for sure. You can't,
Then they also take a month to two months of recovery. Absolutely. That was what I was just going to say. There's also that there's no rest for these horses, right? It's just, yeah. The bone remodeling thing that people cite too. It's like, even if you were going to buy into that belief system, they need rest periods to recover. Otherwise the bones are becoming overstressed and you almost never see that because they're getting ridden. Like at the racetrack, the horses, if they're set, if they're perceived as sound, they're getting ridden six days a week.
Yeah, it's pretty scary to like really reflect on this stuff because I think that the whole industry is really framed around producing horses as quickly as possible. And like as a trainer, it's been really hard to because it's like I would make more money if I was willing to buy into the 30 day start stuff and promise people like, oh, yeah, I'll get your horse going in 30 days. But.
realistically it's like if i'm looking at it from what is most fair to the horse it's like you should be slowly getting them used to packing weight on their back and it should be happening a lot just at the walk at first and then some trot and then gradually building it should not be where they're expecting their horse to be broke to ride
walk trot canter in 30 days and that's what people want though because they want to get going with their horses right away so it makes it so much less lucrative and then the other thing too is that the trainers who aren't willing to do that they get less clients and then they don't get listened to as much because there's also this perspective of like oh let's see you ride at those levels let's see you do xyz where in order to be taken seriously people want you to drink the kool-aid to the point where you're buying into those belief systems and it just sets up an impossible situation
Yeah, if people, like, they will make, like, I find that's difficult, too, because they make excuses to be like, oh, well, they're horses, not humans. It's not the same. Yeah, and it's like, no, you can, like, it's the same thing with the nervous system, too. Like, mammalian nervous systems are all very comparable, so there's a lot of stuff that you can extrapolate.
to horses from human studies and this isn't to say that we should like anthropomorphize them and say that they can think like us but it's like their nervous system can experience trauma in the same way as us and what you're saying with the long-term studies what i would personally like to see but i don't think will actually happen because it would be very damning to the competitive industry is that if organizations like the fei and the jockey club all required like x-rays of these horses that are competing especially the horses competing in young horse and futurity classes
Like they get x-rayed when they're first commencing their show career and then they get x-rayed upon retirement and maybe they're in the middle. They could build a database that really clearly shows and proves that the way that they're doing things is the right way. But they don't want to do that because it would be damning to them. It would show that it's not the right thing to do. I'm fairly certain they're aware of the human data.
Yeah. And I think that they're aware of what the horses too, because I'm certain that people talk amongst each other and that there's an inner knowing where if you're looking at the careers of a lot of these show horses, a lot of them end up retiring with significant issues. And even like, if you just look at the legs of these horses, when you're looking at the jogs before big events, like a lot of them look like shit. Like I was looking at some of the horses at some of the recent five-star events for the jogs and like,
They're getting jumped over incredibly dangerous cross-country courses, and they look so poorly muscled that I wouldn't even want to sit on a horse like that, much less jump it to the extent that these horses are being jumped.
I know like the inverted posture epidemic is, yeah, it's like worldwide from what I can see. It's not just our region. Yeah. And it's defended because people are like, let's see you compete at this level. They're capable. So it must be okay. And it's like, horses are incredible. They can do a lot of things. What, even when their bodies should not be doing it. And yeah,
the fact that they can does not mean that it's right. Cause it always comes at a cost, especially when you're looking at like, if their whole back is atrophied and it's like, that's where someone is sitting. Why would, why should that be at? Like, there's no, there's no sense to be made of it. And then people will argue and they'll be like, Oh, it's because they have really lean muscle. And it's like, lean muscle is different from atrophy. Yeah. Lean muscle and atrophy are different. Yeah. Yep.
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