In this episode, I sit down with Tammy Hays — wife of NRCHA Professional and World's Greatest Horseman, Shawn Hays.

Our conversation covered a wide range of topics: raising kids, investing in real estate, pushing through hard times, offering emotional support — and even how being covered in frozen afterbirth can totally shift your perspective.

I’ve known Tammy since the mid-1990s and have always appreciated her humor and admired her horsemanship. But during this conversation, she shared sides of herself I hadn’t seen before — through stories that were honest, heartfelt, and deeply resonant.

The Trainer’s Wife is a podcast dedicated to celebrating the wives, and on occasion the husbands, of horse trainer’s in the western equine industry. For 35 years I’ve watched talented, successful, brave, beautiful women pour themselves into their husbands careers.These women not only manage and build his business, they manage and build their own as well, sometimes while trying to train and show horses themselves. Whether they are cheering for him from the stands, the back gate, their computer screen at work, or the kids basketball game, they rarely miss one of his go’s at a show. And when he’s done they have the ultimate task of supporting him with empathy, love and acceptance. They have to find the right words to fit each run, learn how to respond and not react, know when and how to offer constructive criticism or just sit in the quiet and let it be. This podcast is about exploring not only what these women bring to complex relationships, but how they continue to be strong, resilient and independent while not losing themselves or being swallowed by their husbands careers.