The Man Who Listens to Horses

This memoir is the autobiography of Monty Roberts, a California horseman who developed a nonviolent method of training horses based on their own silent body language. The book traces his journey from childhood abuse and obscurity to international recognition, framing his discoveries about equine communication as inseparable from his troubled relationship with his father.

Roberts's story begins in the Nevada high desert in 1948. At 13, he traveled from Salinas, California, to gather horses for the annual Salinas Rodeo wild horse race. By 1947, wild horse numbers had dwindled, and the rodeo association needed someone to locate and transport mustangs. Roberts proposed gathering 150 head, with the agreement that he and his younger brother, Larry, would break the surviving horses for auction rather than sending them to slaughter. On that first trip the mustangs were gathered indiscriminately, and many suffered or died during the race. But Roberts glimpsed something that captivated him: a dun mare, the herd's matriarch, disciplining an unruly colt with nothing but body position and eye contact.

The following summer, Roberts spent three weeks alone in the desert observing the herds. His total color blindness, a rare condition called achromatopia, enhanced his ability to detect movement in low light. He watched the dun mare drive a colt from the herd and refuse his return until the colt showed signs of penitence: pacing with his nose near the ground, licking and chewing. Roberts identified a core vocabulary: facing a horse square-on with direct eye contact meant "stay away," while turning at an angle and averting the gaze signaled permission to return. He connected these observations to a story from his Uncle Ray, who was raised on a Cherokee reservation, about hunters who pressed wild horses away before turning around so the animals would follow. Roberts named this phenomenon "Advance and Retreat," the foundational principle of his life's work. Back in Salinas, he secretly started roughly 80 mustangs using his nonviolent approach, hiding his experiments from his father.

Born May 14, 1935, Roberts grew up on a competition grounds in Salinas managed by his father, Marvin Roberts. His mother, Marguerite, ran the riding school's transportation. Marvin exploited his son's riding talent, entering him in competitions and Hollywood stunt work beginning at age four, keeping all earnings. His methods with horses were brutal: The standard breaking process, called "sacking out," involved tying horses to posts and throwing weighted sacks over them for days until they submitted through exhaustion and terror. At seven, when Roberts showed his father that a young gelding had accepted a saddle after only three days of patient interaction, Marvin beat him with a stall chain, hospitalizing him. The beatings continued for years. In 1943, eight-year-old Roberts watched his father brutally beat a handcuffed Black soldier after an armed robbery arrest; the man died days later without medical attention. The incident deepened Roberts's resolve to reject violence toward both people and horses.

Despite the abuse, Roberts found mentors: horseman Bill Dorrance, the only adult who believed in his ideas, and trainer Farrell Jones, who demonstrated that relaxed horses outperform frightened ones. At 14, Roberts demonstrated what he calls "join-up," the moment a horse voluntarily chooses to trust and follow a human, for respected local trainer Ray Hackworth. In a round pen, Roberts drove a three-year-old mustang into flight, read its silent signals, and within 40 minutes had the previously unhandled horse saddled, bridled, and ridden. Hackworth dismissed the demonstration as "a fluke." Crushed, Roberts vowed to keep his methods hidden, a decision that lasted decades.

At 15, Roberts physically confronted his father and demanded independence. He married Pat Burden in 1956; their children Deborah, Laurel, and Marty followed. Roberts competed in rodeo, winning the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association (NIRA) bulldogging championship in 1957. He had also befriended a young actor named James Dean while teaching him cowboy skills for East of Eden in 1954; Dean's death in a car accident the following year was a profound loss for Roberts and Pat. An apprenticeship with Don Dodge, then possibly the most successful Western horse trainer in the country, taught Roberts that honesty about a horse's limitations earns an owner's respect. His first major rehabilitation came with My Blue Heaven, a runaway quarter horse mare he transformed into a near-world champion. He also acquired Johnny Tivio, a quarter horse stallion of extraordinary intelligence who became an undefeated champion across multiple Western disciplines.

In 1964, Roberts began training horses for Hastings Harcourt, heir to the Harcourt Brace publishing fortune. Their partnership produced Flag Is Up Farms, a 1,250-acre Thoroughbred facility near Solvang, California. But Harcourt had bipolar disorder and in 1971 turned destructive, ordering Roberts to shoot several horses he deemed disappointing. Roberts secretly saved all the animals. When Harcourt discovered the deception, he had Roberts arrested on fabricated theft charges. After a protracted legal battle, a retired judge found no felony, and the resolution allowed the Roberts family to purchase Flag Is Up Farms outright.

Roberts rebuilt steadily, purchasing yearlings who became major winners, most notably Alleged, who won the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe, Europe's most prestigious flat race, two years running. Johnny Tivio died of a heart attack in 1981. That same year, Roberts suffered a catastrophic back collapse from decades of injuries. Told after surgery he would never ride again, he returned to the saddle on Dually, a quarter horse cull who became a champion through nonviolent training.

In 1986, Marguerite, dying of cancer, arranged for Marvin to watch Roberts start 10 horses in a single day, each accepting saddle, bridle, and rider within about 30 minutes. Marvin's response was "Keep doing it that way and they'll get you"; he later called the methods "suicide." Marguerite died soon afterward; Marvin followed 42 days later. At the funeral home, Roberts shook his father's hand in the coffin, fulfilling a vision he had held since childhood, and reaffirmed his vow that Marvin would be the last link in the chain of violence.

Beginning in 1977, Roberts also studied wild deer on his property for nearly 20 years, discovering they use body language almost identical to that of horses but with far greater sensitivity. The refined subtleties he learned from the deer measurably improved his work in the round pen.

The transformative event of Roberts's later career came in December 1988, when Queen Elizabeth II, who had read about his demonstrations in equestrian magazines, invited him to Windsor Castle. In April 1989, Roberts started the Queen Mother's unbroken Thoroughbred filly in 25 minutes. When skeptical staff questioned his methods, the Queen arranged a stiffer test with two raw stallions brought unannounced from Hampton Court; Roberts started both successfully. Over the week he started 22 horses, and a nationwide British tour followed. The royal endorsement opened doors that had been closed for decades.

In 1991, Roberts flew to Germany to rehabilitate Lomitas, the country's champion racehorse, banned for life after violently refusing starting gates. Using join-up, he won the horse's trust and systematically reintroduced him to the gate. On June 23, before 20,000 fans, Lomitas broke cleanly and won, going on to be named Germany's Horse of the Year.

The book's afterword, written by journalist Lawrence Scanlan, describes Roberts's 1997 attempt to close the circle begun in his youth. In the Cuyama Valley north of Solvang, with a BBC crew documenting the event, Roberts rode for 35 hours over four days across a 1,200-acre pasture, pursuing a wild mustang using the same Advance and Retreat principles he learned from the dun mare nearly 50 years earlier. Young wrangler Scott Silvera became the first person to ride the horse, whom Roberts named Shy Boy. Roberts expresses hope that future practitioners will advance so far beyond his methods that his current practices will one day seem archaic.