Horseman Tim Hayes Draws Lessons From a Lifetime of Riding

Tim Hayes of Johnson was 47 the first time he rode a horse. Born and raised in New York City’s Greenwich Village, he grew up in a dysfunctional household, the son of an emotionally unavailable mother and an abusive, alcoholic father who worked in advertising. Hayes followed in his father’s footsteps, pursuing a career making TV commercials — and becoming an alcoholic.

Hayes’ life changed in 1992, when he visited a cattle ranch in southern Idaho. As he watched the horses being shod, he asked the farrier and his daughter, a 16-year-old state roping champion, if they’d take him horseback riding.

“I’d never been on a horse. I knew nothing,” Hayes recalled. “Then something happened. I was like, Wow! This horse is so attuned to everything I’m thinking and doing!”

Hayes eventually abandoned his lucrative career in television — and gave up drinking — to pursue a happier, healthier life built around horses. He became a master of natural horsemanship, aka “horse whispering,” which uses gentle, humane techniques to build the relationship between animal and rider.

An expert on equine therapy, Hayes published Riding Home: The Power of Horses to Heal in 2015. The book examined how working with horses can help hardened criminals, people with addictions and veterans with post-traumatic

stress disorder. Robert Redford, who directed and starred in the 1998 movie The Horse Whisperer, wrote the book’s forward.

Hayes just released his second book, Horses, Humans and Love: Powerful Lessons From the Herd. It garnered blurbs from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Carl Bernstein, Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Judy Collins, and former heavyweight boxer Gerry Cooney.

But Horses, Humans and Love is more than a book about horses for equestrians. “It’s really a book about humanity and love,” he said, “and how horses taught me to be a better person.”

Hayes, who just turned 80, lives with his wife, Stephanie Lockhart-Hayes, on their horse ranch in Johnson and still teaches on the local campus of Vermont State University. He no longer rides, having been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease two years ago. Seven Days spoke to him recently by phone.

Your first book, Riding Home, was a huge success. Why did you write a second?

As I got more into horses, I became fascinated with equine therapy and was asked to teach a course in it at the University of Vermont and Vermont State. My students weren’t getting equine therapy, just interested in learning about it. As I taught the course, I started to see some dramatic breakthroughs with students in terms of self-awareness. I would ask the class, “How many of you have ever felt inadequate?” Everyone raised their hand, as did I. Why is that?

People who would interact with a horse would get stuck in a place and they’d feel like they weren’t doing it right or weren’t good enough. As they talked, their words reflected some emotional wound from their childhood where they felt judged or criticized by their parents.

I was also learning how horses relate to each other, especially their foals. I discovered 10 qualities that horses possess [see sidebar]. I thought, Wow! Maybe we can learn how to be better people if we can practice what they do.

How so?

When a horse sees another horse, it doesn’t matter if it’s a brown horse or a black horse or a white horse. They say, “I feel safe because I’m with someone just like me.” Humans don’t do that. If we see another person that looks different, we feel different. The fact is, we’re the same species. And that’s one of the biggest problems with humanity, that we’re killing each other and the planet.

If someone asked you to make a list of all the people you love, how long would it take before you put your own name on the list? Most people say, “I would never have thought of putting my name on the list.” Why not? Because we’re never taught to love ourselves. Until I learn to love myself like I matter and I’m worthy, I’m going to need something outside of me — like a great job, a great wife, a lot of money, a big house — that makes me feel like I’m enough. That’s why we judge each other and don’t get along on so many levels.

Where did I learn to love myself? I didn’t learn it in grammar school, high school, college or from books. The place we learn to love ourselves is from our parents. And if they don’t know how to love themselves, how are they going to teach me? What it all boils down to is, horses taught me what love is.

Isn’t there a danger in anthropomorphizing horses’ behaviors and motivations?

The big difference between humans and horses is, we are predators. We survived for 300,000 years by killing our enemies. We kill to eat, we kill to protect ourselves, and now we kill people we disagree with. Horses have survived by running away and getting along. I’m not anthropomorphizing. Horses have thoughts and feelings. When you start to develop a relationship with a horse, you see that relationship evolve.

Everyone loves dogs. They can be loving and friendly, and they’ll lick you even if they don’t know you. But dogs are predators, so you don’t have to earn their trust. For a horse to have a relationship with you, they have to make sure that you’re not going to hurt them. And earning that acceptance is a very powerful thing.

This interview was edited and condensed for clarity and length.

Excerpt from Horses, Humans and Love: Powerful Lessons From the Herd

Horses have existed on our planet for more than 55 million years. They are vegetarians. As a prey species, they have survived by outrunning and escaping their predator enemies and by living peacefully together in large groups (herds). In addition to their formidable power and speed, there are two unique evolutionary traits that have also contributed to the success of equine survival and enabled horses to live for eons. The first one is hypervigilance — the unfailing effectiveness of a horse’s superhuman senses to detect the slightest predatorial stimulus and immediately run away to safety. The other is herd dynamics — the qualities I mentioned in the introduction of this book that provide horses’ innate ability to harmoniously live together and get along with each other.

Horses live in herds to increase their chances of survival. If a mountain lion shows up, it’s safer to be in a herd of fifty horses than all alone. Any species that depends on living in groups in order to survive must also be able to continually care about each other, help each other, look out for each other, and peacefully resolve conflicts without hurting each other. Horses are masters at getting along with their own species.

To promote social harmony and keep the herd safely together, equine herd dynamics consist of evolutionarily hardwired qualities that I, having observed thousands of horses for more than thirty years, see as ten textbook-perfect social skills: Acceptance, Tolerance, Patience, Understanding, Kindness, Honesty, Trust, Respect, Forgiveness, and Compassion.

Taken together, these constitute what I have come to believe is the universal or true altruistic meaning of what we call love. I believe it is this love that, when emulated by humans, enables us to become better parents, children, husbands, wives, and partners. It is this love, so eloquently demonstrated among horses, that is the literal archetype for the love that I feel is not only indispensable for every successful human relationship but potentially the future existence of humanity.

This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.

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