Foust/ Patten's Farm

08/29/2026

Sometimes you need a kind, simple lesson horse to remind you that you can ride.

08/22/2026

Do you want your horse to be calm?
Be calm first.

You want him soft?
Soften first.

You want him brave?
Breathe first.

Horsemanship isn’t asking him to do what you won’t.
It’s showing him how.

If you’re anxious, he can’t be peaceful.
If you’re frustrated, he can’t be willing.
If you’re in your ego, he can’t be safe.

08/13/2026

Don’t Marry Your Tools🛠👰

Horse people do love a training-tool religion.

Choose your denomination. Pressure and release. Rewards and treats. Select your sacred approach, denounce the heretics and spend Thursday night on social media explaining why everyone outside your particular branch of equestrianism is ruining horses.🙄

I primarily train using pressure and release. I’ve spent years learning how horses make sense of pressure, and how to work with it well to influence behaviour. I have also got very good at understanding what happens when humans use it spectacularly wrong.😕

I also use food reinforcement.

Because why the heck wouldn’t I?

I encourage my clients to learn the basics too. They’re already using food to "train" every time they feed their horse, throw out hay or hand over a carrot. Learning theory doesn’t stop working because you haven’t read the instructions.

And food reinforcement is damn handy, particularly for some medical and management situations. So it sits happily in my toolbox.

Imagine going to a doctor who believes every problem can be treated with a prescription medication.

Back pain? Prescription.

Toothache? Prescription.

Poor nutrition? Prescription.

You suggest a physiotherapist, dentist or nutritionist.

The doctor looks horrified.

*“I don’t believe in nutritionists.”*🫣

The problem isn’t the prescription. Prescriptions medications can be very important for certain medical issues. The problem is believing that because one intervention works well, everything else must be useless or morally suspicious.

Horse training has somehow managed to turn this into a virtue.😎

Some pressure trainers talk about food reinforcement as though producing a treat instantly transforms the horse into a biting, pocket-rummaging psychopath.🙄

Some positive reinforcement trainers describe pressure as though it consists entirely of whipping horses until they submit.🙄

And sometimes that’s because the training they’ve witnessed really was dreadful.😱

But crap training doesn’t necessarily mean a crap tool.

Every training approach has risks. Poor skill simply has a remarkable ability to find them.

So when someone tells me a training tool is useless, dangerous or morally inferior, I’m curious.

*Did you ever actually learn to use it well? Or at least become curious enough to watch someone who can?*🤔

Because criticising incompetent use of a tool isn’t the same as understanding the tool.🤓

I don’t want fewer options with horses. I want more.

Expertise isn’t having one prescription for every horse. It’s knowing enough to recognise when you need a different one.

Collectable Advice 270/365.

If this resonates please hit SHARE.❤

IMAGE📸: My toolbox that I take along to clinics ❤

08/03/2026

The ribbons are nice but the work to connect with your horse is what it is about.

07/13/2026

What’s holding you back from trying something new? Learn patterns without markers is Sara’s. Today she decided to learn. We all make mistakes…… but that is how we learn and have a good laugh.

07/03/2026

“5 minutes of clarity”
“ Good coaching isn’t about knowing everything. It’s about helping someone identify the NEXT thing that matters.”
BOOM!!! 💥

Maybe You Don't Want a Five Minute Fix After All🧐

This post might be a little controversial because I've had my understanding challenged recently by some research I have been conducting....

For a long time, I blamed social media for creating a generation of horse owners looking for five minute fixes. Short videos, endless scrolling and shrinking attention spans certainly haven't helped, and I still think they're part of the story.

BUT I no longer think they're the whole story.🤔

I think we've been getting it wrong.

One of the most common criticisms I hear is that horse owners just want the easy answer. That they don't want to put in the work.

I'm not convinced.

I think most horse owners are already working incredibly hard.

They're juggling work, family, finances, properties, other animals and everything else life throws at them. Then they head out to see their horse, hoping for a little peace, only to discover today's problem is completely different from yesterday's.

So they do exactly what we've told them to do.

They watch the videos. They read the books. They join memberships. They listen to podcasts. They go to clinics.

Then social media kindly introduces another fifteen experts, each absolutely certain the other fourteen are wrong.

By this stage they've collected enough advice to wallpaper the tack room, but somehow they feel more confused and frustrated than when they started.

When someone says, "I just wish someone would tell me what to do," I don't hear someone asking for a shortcut.

I hear someone who has reached capacity.

Psychologists call it cognitive load. I call it having too many tabs open on the browser in your head.🫠

The problem isn't that people don't want to learn.

The problem is they're exhausted from trying to work out what they should learn first.

That's a very different thing.

Maybe, as coaches and educators, our job isn't to give people more information.

Maybe it's to help them ignore most of it.🫣

Good coaching isn't about knowing everything.

It's about helping someone identify the NEXT thing that matters.

Not the next twenty.

Maybe it's time we stopped criticising horse owners for wanting a five minute fix.😬

Maybe what they're really looking for is five minutes of clarity.

If this resonates with you, I'd love you to join me for my webinar on *Thursday, 9 July 2026 at 7.30 pm (Sydney, Australia time)*....everyone registered will get a copy of the replay 🤓

We'll explore why horse owners become overwhelmed, how cognitive load affects learning, and practical ways to reduce the mental clutter so you can make clearer, more confident decisions with your horse.

The registration link is below.

Collectable Advice 249/365. If this resonates hit SHARE so others might read it too. ❤

06/26/2026

This

"The key question is not, 'How do I stop the problem behaviour?' Rather the question is, 'What do I want the animal to do instead?' Then teach it." Susan G. Friedman

This quote has been one of my guiding signposts for many years.

It completely changed the way I observe behaviour and approach horses.

A great example is King.

King is a 14-year-old Thoroughbred. Like many off-the-track horses, he'd gone on to have a career after racing, competing in eventing and show jumping. When he came to my *Racehorse to Riding Horse: Off the Track Reboot* collaborator, Isabelle Chandler, he simply didn't stand at the mounting block.

Not sometimes.

Never.

He'd just walk or trot circles around the mounting block while the rider tried to catch the perfect moment to leap aboard.😱

Everyone accepted it as "just King."

"It's because he's an OTTB."

"He's just keen."

"That's his personality."

But Isabelle looked at it differently.

Instead of accepting this as "just King", or asking, "How do I stop him walking off?", she asked, *"What do I want him to do instead?"*

Stand quietly beside the mounting block.

So that's exactly what she taught him.🙌

Three days later, King stood calmly while she mounted.

And the best part?

He's perfectly happy to do it.

He simply needed someone to teach him.

So many behaviours we label as personality, breed characteristics or stubbornness are really just gaps in education.

Think about some common examples.

The horse pulling on the bit.

The horse reluctant to load onto the float.

The horse anxious about canter.

The horse worried about new places.

The horse that loses confidence at the spooky end of the arena.

Instead of asking, *"How do I stop this?"*, the way better question is, *"What does this horse need to learn?"*

Sometimes that's a new behaviour.

Sometimes it's confidence.

Sometimes it's balance and physical strength.

Sometimes it's learning that the world is safe and predictable with a human they trust.

These things don't simply happen with time. They are taught through thoughtful training, good timing, clear communication and an understanding of how horses learn.❤

There is both a science and an art to helping horses become calm, willing and confident.

Many horse owners have never been shown this. We often go to riding lessons and learn the mechanics of riding, but there is a whole other fascinating side to horsemanship. Unfortunately, many people only discover it when they own a horse that frustrates or scares them, like one that won't stand still at the mounting block...or makes riding not very enjoyable🫣

So if you're feeling frustrated with your horse today, don't just ask how to stop the behaviour.

And don't simply accept that, "that's just how they are."

Instead, ask yourself:

**What do I want my horse to be able to do instead?**

Then go and learn how to teach it.😎

That one question has the power to change everything.

Collectable Advice 242/365.

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IMAGE📸: Isabelle and King ❤