National study shows local program using horses to help vets has a long-term impact

TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) - In this week’s We the People, we’re focusing on a program that’s been helping military veterans for the last 15 years. And it uses horses to accomplish its mission.

A research study shows that what’s happening at the Swanton farm is truly saving and changing lives.

There’s an old saying that something about the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man. And that’s the foundation of H.O.O.V.E.S., an organization that uses horses to help veterans heal. And national peer-reviewed research shows it’s working.

Robert Drake is right at home around horses, but it wasn’t always that way. He served in the United States Marine Corps from 1998 to 2003 and was deployed to the Middle East after 9/11.

“The military teaches you how to survive by teaching you to compartmentalize and stuff it all down inside. What was not offered when I got out was assistance to deal with that,” Drake said.

Drake says he drank heavily to cope and eventually transferred that addiction to drugs. He says he was planning to take his own life when an old friend he served with invited him to join him for a five-day healing intensive program. Drake made the trip from Washington state to Swanton. It’s a decision that quickly changed his life on many levels.

“We had finished an activity. I was by myself, and I fell to my knees sobbing because I wanted to live,” Drake said.

That was in the summer of 2024. Drake went back to Washington but always felt a pull back to the place that helped save him. He now works at H.O.O.V.E.S. as the director of integrated services.

“H.O.O.V.E.S. provided me with a purpose and calling I didn’t know I was missing,” Drake said.

In 2024, H.O.O.V.E.S. partnered with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs on a blind study to learn more about the impact of the organization’s five-day healing intensives that use horses to help veterans heal. Researchers tracked the vets during and after the program.

“For six months, they were monitored. What it showed was the healing continued after they got home,” Amanda Held, the founder and director of H.O.O.V.E.S., said.

Held says the research proved what she already knew.

“Yes, there’s research and neuroscience that validates what the horses are doing in a very scientific way, but it just feels like magic when you’re in the moment with the horse,” Held said.

The vets work with the horses on various ground exercises. And Drake says the horses act like a mirror.

“They reflect back to you what you’re internalizing, so if you’re standoffish, the horses are standoffish,” Drake said.

All the horses used in the program understand challenges. Held says they were all rescued.

“When a vet comes in and meets a horse with a similar story, it brings an additional level of connection,” Held said.

A connection helping people help themselves.

“It’s life-changing and life-saving, but it’s not H.O.O.V.E.S. that saved me. It’s the tools they provided that I couldn’t get elsewhere; I had to do the work. I had to use those tools to save my own life,” says Drake.

Drake had never been around horses until he arrived at H.O.O.V.E.S. and now he can’t imagine life without them. So far, all of his work with them has been on the ground, but next week he’s going to start taking riding lessons.

If you’d like to take a look at the full study or learn more about H.O.O.V.E.S. and its programs, click here.

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