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
From my experience, it has become very, very clear to me that the majority of these horses have lifelong physical issues after them.
All of my off-the-track thoroughbreds have.
One of them died, not necessarily directly because of his physical issues, but his life leading up to his death was very much characterized by having to try to overcome these issues that he should not have had as a young horse.
And then I also have his half-sibling, Pogo, who has...
horrific kissing spine that would have come from the racetrack he's also very poorly conformed and never should have been bred because his sire is ugly and never should have been bred um and then i have my mare who's the soundest out of all of them but like she still has arthritic like some minor arthritic changes in her joints and she's only 11 years old and
there's all of these things that pile up and the studies that we're using to justify these practices are only looking at horses for the duration of their career, which isn't really a fair assessment because we shouldn't just be aiming to keep horses sound until they're five years old.
Honestly, selfishness, because like I fell into this as well, where it's like you learn stuff about starting young horses that I might be bad, but then you seek confirmation bias because
don't want to have to wait and that also all goes back to prioritizing riding because people who learn how to enjoy groundwork and the little things with horses that are not riding are better equipped to be patient and wait totally and unfortunately we don't really instill those behaviors but the funny thing is that children starting out riding they just want to spend time with horses
So if we really enrich people's lives from their start with horses and made it more fun to do groundwork and do these other important things that aren't riding, it would shift the whole industry.
And that's what I really hope to see.
And like, I would love to be able to work with like the younger generations eventually to help bring them into like the horse world in a way that is more horse centric and normalizing, getting lessons and stuff that don't prioritize riding where it's like, you can come hang out at the barn and you can learn stuff about horses.
Totally.
And you can do these things, but you're not always going to be riding because that's not the reality of what actually having a horse is.
It's not just about riding if you're actually in it for their well-being because they're not going to always have good days.
They're not always going to be comfortable.
They're not always going to be happy to be ridden.
And we need to be okay with all of those things.
Otherwise, what we're really doing is more akin to treating horses like a dirt bike.
Like a lot of horse people would be better equipped getting a dirt bike or some type of machinery that they can use and abuse and ride and do whatever they want with.
And all they have to worry about is fixing it when it breaks down because there's no emotional component.
Showing 161–180 of 575 · page 9 of 29
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