Anyone so self involved as to publish videos on how she washes her hair is not capable of considering how her words might have power. It’s all about her, her feathers, and showing a bit of side boob.
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I mean, yeah, all of your examples make me very uncomfortable/unhappy and I’d have to consider at least slightly neglectful.
ETA - I think this is kind of the point. This type of “horse management” has become so commonplace for the sake of showing and point-chasing and “protecting financial investments,” we’ve lost sight of what we really should be doing for these animals that give us so much.
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Fair point, though
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But when you rundown the laundry list of our never-ending complaints in this sport; drugs, lunging to death, ulcers, endless maintenance, etc, all that traces back to this modern desire to be on the road for weeks at a time, which is obviously at odds with a consistent turnout regimen.
We can’t keep complaining about that stuff & not call out the bad advice that ultimately leads to that stuff.
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I hear you, I do. As a kid we had a number of high-end folks use the meager boarding barn where I kept my horse as a layover. I’m talking multiple 100k+ horses in the mid 1980s. They turned them out in pretty shabby conditions to let them have some down time. That stuck with me. At the same time other high-end folks were using the fancy barn where I worked as a layover. Horses came off trailers and went into Alcatraz… Solid stall walls, stall fronts they couldn’t hang a head over, and screened windows that faced a forest. They were NEVER turned loose.
I know it’s just anecdotal data, but neither set of horses was more or less neurotic than the other. They were all road warriors and did their thing, seems like they are more adaptable than we might think.
(My horses live out 24/7 with thick woods for shelter. Someone, somewhere is mortified that I don’t bring them into a Morton barn when it clouds up).
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Yeah but, just because many are adaptable, doesn’t mean it’s ideal or even reasonable for us to expect them to deal with such lives.
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I agree. But we’re all so very quick to throw stones. I bet at least one of the people on this thread decrying Dani has done exactly those things from time to time-- LTD, Perfect Prep, go to week-long shows where horses get no turnout during the show, inject everything out the wazoo, jump higher/more often than is really appropriate, limp horses through a circuit on bute or robaxin or dex, etc.
Again, to be clear. I don’t manage my horses in the way Dani does. But again, horse care to that degree is a highly subjective question and there is PLENTY that we ALL do that is unnatural/harmful in ways to our horses. Some dressage people would have our heads for clipping the muzzle. We’ve all got different ways of managing horses. It’s a balance.
I do come down on the side of the line that turnout is important and it would be better to sacrifice other things than that. But I’m not incapable of understanding that other people’s live/decisions/standards/accessibility are different than mine.
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Her husband is a breeder in Europe. Assuming the 600 she was referring to were mostly mares and foals. I sleuthed through her Instagram last night trying to find the post, but it’s since been deleted (it was another controversial thing people were calling her out for on Instagram). Most of her posts have “limited comments” where she essentially cuts off commenting.
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Isn’t it? There are people who would have my head on a platter for not bringing mine in before thunderstorms. We had a horrific storm just this week where I wished I’d brought them up to the barn earlier in the day, fully knowing that disruption of their routine would irritate them and aggravate Chip’s RAO, also fully knowing the forecast is highly variable and I could have just left them down there and we would have gotten a little rain. As it turned out, lightning was dancing a jig like I’ve never seen and I’m purely lucky no trees were struck with my tiny herd under it.
And then I’d be castigated for “letting them die.”
So …yeah. we all want what’s best for everyone and all horses and simultaneously maybe there’s room for nuance rather than “outrage” and cries of “abuse and neglect”
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And there’s this post of her with Queensland (whom she was competing in March of 2020) … turned out…in October of 2020. Maybe she’s just contrary for kicks?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGH2KO4JufM/?igshid=1kqyhpyn48ixa
Why not? I really think especially the younger generation of horse people will be a more ethical and more empathetic to their horse’s needs. We do have lots of problems and turnout isn’t the only issue but that’s not a reason to throw your hands up and say “oh well!”
There’s no reason to whatabout, this practice is unethical and she shouldn’t be promoting it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t also other unethical practices but right now, we’re talking about this one. Tomorrow if another pro gets on Instagram and tells people to lunge their horse to death, I’ll see you in that thread and I’ll be just as outraged over that too.
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This!!! A million times over!
If she’s going to offer advice on horse care, she needs to make sure she prefaces what she says with something like “but do what is in the best interest of your horse!” I know that there are people out there who will take her words to heart – maybe if I don’t turn out my horse he won’t get injured and then I can . . .
I don’t see this as specifically against Dani, just that putting this out there needs to come with some sort of warning… just in case.
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Well, when Lizziemary is done competing she can come live with me and I’ll turn her out or not to her heart’s content. I love that horse SO much.
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I find turnout injuries in horses who go out every day to be very rare (though of course not impossible). HOWEVER, in Southern California there’s so little turnout that sometimes horses can go a bit nuts when they do get to be loose, because they’re not used to it.
I worked at a big boarding facility where the only turnout was in riding rings or round pens that weren’t being used. Almost no horses got out more than a couple times a week for 20 minutes or so. They were also fed high-energy alfalfa. Unfortunately, several trainers I knew chose to simply drug their clients’ horses for every ride, because they believed it was safer for horse and rider 
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All true. I am at one of those large urban barns. We do have dedicated turnouts which helps.
My mom’s horse’s catastrophic injury was in a ring and the horse wasn’t turned out regularly. A friend’s filly lost an eye when she was kicked in a group pasture.Turning the horse out with peers was the right thing to do. But these things, however anomalous, tend to stick with you.
I mostly tend to turn out after riding which gets me a few strange looks.
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I don’t know about the others you listed, but the Budweiser horses do get turned out during their layovers/travels. So, while they may not have turnout while they are immediately on exhibition, they more-than-likely did right before arriving. Texas A&M has hosted one of the teams multiple times.
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Same here. Also in the urban barn setting. I loved riding later in the evening, being the last one to use the ring since that let me strip my horse of his saddle and bridle and turn him out for a bit immediately after riding. It gave him a chance to roll, buck and fart and be a silly horse while already being warmed-up and booted so I felt like he had a slightly less chance for injury.
Its not perfect, but its better than nothing.
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The CP horses have mandatory vacations every X number of weeks, when they have to be brought back to the farm to be turned out for 3 weeks.
A travelling zoo show is my neighbor. When not on the road, their ponies live in a large paddock with run-in stalls, and occasionally get turned out into the pasture. Their camels are turned out in a paddock, daily. Today the camels were in the big pasture.
As a kid, my instructor had a 3 gaited SB ( he was actually a 5 gaited horse, but there were not many classes for that around here, so she showed 3 gaited). I believe he was turned out in the ring some of the time. I know when she wasn’t showing, her sister would trail ride him. The poor horse had been pushed so hard before she got him, that he had a nervous breakdown in a fine harness class at Madison Square garden, (he laid down and wouldn’t get up), and was sold at auction. Her BO bought him, and eventually gave him to her.
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Looks like Horse and Hound have picked up on this. https://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/top-rider-explains-turnout-opinion-after-social-media-wolf-pack-storm-745182?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_content=horseandhound&fbclid=IwAR1z8_Ly-Yl5ib18vc59t5ju4B1r70T36cvb1mMx2eJ_wdaSM6iswZZzEyA
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Do I own one? No. Have been in charge of the health and care of several of them - yes. All of them got turnout, all of them
Add me to the list of people who will die on the turnout hill. No turnout is cruelty. If you can’t provide it, you don’t need to have a horse. They are not a necessity
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