And what's the most unreasonable rule at a livery yard?

[Landcruiser]

Following on from other thread about livery rules. I'm sure this has been done before, but lets have another go at it.
For me, not being allowed to tape off sections of my big field in order to restrict grazing/manage my grass, because the tape "looks ugly " was one that had me moving onwards. Another privately owned/runyard would not allow bottom stable doors to be left open ever, even after a washout, nor rugs hung over them (or anywhere else) to dry. Because it looked untidy. Pain in the proverbial.

 

[ihatework]

I was on a livery yard once where a 'new rule' was introduced.
My horse was off work lame
There was another horse on the yard, smart horse but he had done not a lot for years.
The owner of horse was struggling time/financially and the YM had been schooling him for a couple of months (and competed him once as well), in their own time.
YM didn't want to continue unpaid, owner couldn't afford to pay and offered the horse to YM dirt cheap to buy. YM turned down.

Roll on to me being at a loose end, agreed a share on horse. I paid a token amount, did some chores and funded the training/competing.
All went well and horse turned out to be very good.
Some slightly green eyed monster snarky comments from YM.

Anyway, roll on a few months and horse now had value. Owner realised this was time to sell. Owner offered me 10% of sale price, which would essentially cover what I had paid out in those few months of sharing. All fair and amicable.

Except for green eyed monster. Who immediately got their big wooden spoon out and wound up the non-horsey business minded farmer YO. I suspect the conversation went along the lines of IHW is making money out of your facilities and the cut of sale should be ours ...

The rule (prior to this horse being sold) was introduced that any owner wishing to sell their horse off the yard using a third party would be subject to 10% comission ...

I kid you not

 

[lrw0250]

A bit off topic as not a livery yard, but when I was a student a group of us rented a flat though an agent but we were told we had to also meet the landlord in person before the lease was finalised. Reason being she wanted to see us in person as she would not rent to girls who had hair longer than shoulder length as there was too big a risk of the hair blocking the drain resulting in plumbers fees so she wanted to see how long our hair was! It was also written in to our lease that no toilet block type things were to be used for the same reason.

 

[Midlifecrisis]

Being told you can only buy the hay or haylage made on site despite the quality being poor/dusty/weedy and horses on yard with COPD or old and fussy and wont eat it...it just seems a bit inflexible although I appreciate the yard owner is looking at another income stream.

 

[Damnation]

I was on a yard where I was told I *had* to hack out on weekends.

No big deal except that I worked in the morning when everyone hacked and my 4 year old green ex racer wouldn't hack alone, so the YO bullied me. I then tried to hack alone and got told off for trying to hack alone.

I was then told I *had* to call the vet out to a scrape on my horses leg, or she would. It took the 1st layer of skin off and not the 2nd, no bigger than an inch long, not infected, not bleeding, not deep. She cost me a £120 vets bill to be told I needed to put cream on it (Which I already knew). (It was a Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!)

She used to reduce me to tears, I was a 17 year old girl with her first horse and no parental support (they would pay the bill but thats it). If I was there now I would have booted her to the next planet and moved my horse ASAP.

Needless to say it was the yard from hell, I stayed for winter then left. I have never met such a horrid, overbearing, bulling cow as her. I don't "Hate" people but I strongly dislike the woman.

 

[amandaco2]

Told you could only re fill water buckets every 2 days in the field. And only1 bucket allowed.

 

[Merrymoles]

No tying horses up outside their stables for any reason and, if you wanted to wash legs or tail, you had to do it in your stable - with nowhere for the water to drain...

Didn't stay long.

 

[Bernster]

IHW and lrw - those two are the oddest surely ! Have to say, from reading bits of the other thread, I thought it was pretty unreasonable to book out a school during peak time, for sole use, which means no-one else can ride (in the dark/winter anyway). I'd be pretty cheesed off if they had that rule at our yard, those who work full time may only be able to ride in the evenings during the week.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

I thought about moving to a certain yard a good few years ago now; and the rule was that you HAD to use "their" farrier. End of. No way.

They had vacancies at the time, I initially wondered why..........

 

[TheHairyOne]

Mine has a 'no bareback' rule. It is just a DIY yard. It was put in as someone was frankly dangerous, but stayed in after they left 'for insurance'. We all HAVE to have our own...

It's annoying, but not a deal breaker.

 

[Morgan123]

I was on a cheap DIY yard once (just a farm really) where they brought in a rule that all mares had to be scanned to prove they weren't pregnant!!

 

[huskydamage]

Mine has a 'no bareback' rule. It is just a DIY yard. It was put in as someone was frankly dangerous, but stayed in after they left 'for insurance'. We all HAVE to have our own...

It's annoying, but not a deal breaker.

that sucks! they wouldn't have me there then, I do all sorts of weird things on my pony lol
I'm lucky never been anywhere with too many rules and wouldn't want to- but I have known other people at yards with things like- no dogs, no kids, no alcohol, strict time curfews, no solo hacking, must wear hat/body protector/cotton wool wrapping at all times on the yard.... I can see why these come about in today's claim/blame culture though

 

[criso]

One yard I was at, you could buy their hay (bought in not grown on site) or get your own BUT if you got your own you weren't allowed to have it delivered, you had to collect it yourself. My horse refused to eat the hay which was mouldy and had dropped loads of weight so moved onto haylage. I didn't have a car so was forced to get a taxi, taxi driver not impressed with having haylage bales in his taxi! I offered to let them source haylage for me and I would pay them them for it letting them make a profit on it, but that was no good either.

Luckily I had a sharer and the local feedshop was on his way so he would pick up the haylage for me. I would have left but shortly after that the yard changed hands and the new owner had a regular delivery from a big feed shop and you could add anything onto it. She added a bit on top but the feed place was Titmuss which is so much cheaper than anywhere else I saved money.

 

[Damnation]

I thought about moving to a certain yard a good few years ago now; and the rule was that you HAD to use "their" farrier. End of. No way.

They had vacancies at the time, I initially wondered why..........

See I don't mind that too much, but then I am on a highly reputable racing yard (YO is very infection control conscious) so we have to use their farrier. However they are so fussy about horses feet (YO's husband is an ex jockey who did farrier training) that any farrier they get must be good so I ain't complaining!!

 

[TheHairyOne]

that sucks! they wouldn't have me there then, I do all sorts of weird things on my pony lol

To be fair we do have some rather nice private hacking and some lovely flat fields...I always leave and return to the yard in a saddle in the summer!

 

[Merlod]

When I was on livery the self appointed YM told us we all had to keep our horses in for one day a week to save the grass, though it didnt matter which day.. didn't make a jot of difference to the fields it was just a way assert power.

I now have my own livery where it's up to the liveries how they keep their own horses and I will rotate the fields accordingly!

 

[Wimbles]

I went to look round a yard. I had told the YO that I had 5 thoroughbreds. When we got there she proceeded to ask me how old my lot were and I'd said that the youngest was 9 and the oldest was 19. She said that they didn't allow horses under 10??? and that she didn't like having thoroughbreds on the yard. Why she couldn't have told me this over the phone before I made the journey over there i shall never know.........

 

[Dubsie]

Any rule that you're told on arrival at said yard, but then is seen not to apply to the YM, so no-one obeys it. We have a couple of rules like this, the one that annoys me most is the 'no dogs in the feed room', but continually certain dogs and the YM dogs apparently are allowed in, is annoying if you left a bowl of feed on top of your bins for 2 minutes to soak while you got hay, shut the feed room door but someone opens it and said dog jumps up tips bowl over looking for barley rings....

If I had a dog I'd not take it to the yard, it's overrun with dogs not under control, there's one I always think I'm going to run over on arrival (bumbles about randomly at speed), one that carries a big wacking stick around, big dog just the right height to scratch your car (must get a 4x4 to alleviate this), one that barks incessantly the more you ignore it, continually brings you sticks to throw, why it can't go and chase rats out of the hay barn I don't know it looks like a ratter!, and one that always leaves poos about the place and the owner never manages to pick them all up so you somehow manage to always tread in it

 

[zigzag]

One rule I saw in a local yard was No Shetlands!

 

[xgemmax]

The worst was my old yard which had no rules and no one had any common sense, it had kids and dogs running about everywhere and the place was a mess!

 

[CBFan]

When I was on livery the self appointed YM told us we all had to keep our horses in for one day a week to save the grass, though it didnt matter which day.. didn't make a jot of difference to the fields it was just a way assert power.

We had someone at one yard I was at try to do this... I ignored her as I chose the yard based on the flexible turnout, meaning that I could turn my horse out in the morning before work, and bring him in after - just because I happened to work a FULL day, does NOT mean that fellow liveries can dictate to me when my horse should come in!! He was often the last out and both he and I were fine with that!.

One of my Y/Os was a complete nutter! and one day suddenly decided that nothing but hay and bedding should be in the barn, which was right beside the only area we were allowed to tie up and groom and as such, tended to also house our grooming kits and any boots our horses wore, so one day we all got down there to find our stuff thrown all over the barn and instructions to tidy up! We were'nt so bothered about the rule, more the way she went about it...She did the same with the tackroom the next day, having re-allocated us all with specific spaces for our stuff, she threw all our stuff around the tackroom so we had to stand there all evening sorting our own stuff from everyone elses.... There was no prior warning / fallout over space, it came completely out of the blue. Shortly after that there was a rule about only using one socket in the tack room (the second of the twin socket was taped over with Duct tape to prevent us using it??!) We could never work out why that was... oh and we weren't allowed to recharge clippers either...

 

[Enfys]

I was once on a military yard where hay and straw was inclusive and you HAD to have a bale of hay, and of straw, per horse, per day! I used to sell my surplus

On my own yard. re: limiting sockets ... I had to admit that I locked the office/workshop door (where the sockets were) after I found one livery owner had bought up her car battery and was charging it over night on the sly (not to mention making free with our power tools and supplies whenever the whim took . Oh the stories I could tell about her )

 

[Potter84]

I'm proper laughing at some of these rules. How are any yards left in business 😂

 

[Enfys]

One rule I saw in a local yard was No Shetlands!

I had a similar rule: No drafts, or horses over 16.2h.

Why?

Apart from "My Ranch, My Rules" applying

Because big horses have big feet and make a mess of the fields, my stables were not big enough (even I couldn't get a sodding great 18h Belgian into a 10' x 11' box) and I am only 5'1" with a frozen shoulder, I simply couldn't handle them safely, I did full livery only (couldn't be doing with DIY-ers turning up at all hours of the day, no offence) Sometimes there are reasons for rules, daft as they sound.

 

[alainax]

The rule " you must pick up poo immediately". Regardless if in the middle of a tricky schooling session, or walking from the arena to the stable, must stop and get off immediately to pick it up. I can see the reasoning, however completely unrealistic.

 

[fatpiggy]

I was on a livery yard once where a 'new rule' was introduced.
My horse was off work lame
There was another horse on the yard, smart horse but he had done not a lot for years.
The owner of horse was struggling time/financially and the YM had been schooling him for a couple of months (and competed him once as well), in their own time.
YM didn't want to continue unpaid, owner couldn't afford to pay and offered the horse to YM dirt cheap to buy. YM turned down.

Roll on to me being at a loose end, agreed a share on horse. I paid a token amount, did some chores and funded the training/competing.
All went well and horse turned out to be very good.
Some slightly green eyed monster snarky comments from YM.

Anyway, roll on a few months and horse now had value. Owner realised this was time to sell. Owner offered me 10% of sale price, which would essentially cover what I had paid out in those few months of sharing. All fair and amicable.

Except for green eyed monster. Who immediately got their big wooden spoon out and wound up the non-horsey business minded farmer YO. I suspect the conversation went along the lines of IHW is making money out of your facilities and the cut of sale should be ours ...

The rule (prior to this horse being sold) was introduced that any owner wishing to sell their horse off the yard using a third party would be subject to 10% comission ...

I kid you not

Actually, that was a standing rule on one yard I was on and no-one saw it as a problem. Anyone selling was using the YO's facilities to show off their horse to would-be buyers and the YO would charge a percentage of the final price. We had one livery who turned out (amongst other things) to be a small-scale dealer and he didn't declare it when he moved on so was given his marching orders when the YO found out.

 

[fatpiggy]

On the farm where my horse saw out her retirement we were not allowed to put hay pile in the fields. The land was owned by the NT and apparently it looked very untidy. In our paddock we got away with it by tying haynets to the fence under the hedge so they couldn't be seen from the road. The other field had one big round feeder in it which meant the bully horses got it all and they shy ones stood back and got hungry.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

I had a similar rule: No drafts, or horses over 16.2h.

Why?

Because big horses have big feet and make a mess of the fields, my stables were not big enough (even I couldn't get a sodding great 18h Belgian into a 10' x 11' box) and I am only 5'1" with a frozen shoulder, I simply couldn't handle them safely, I did full livery only (couldn't be doing with DIY-ers turning up at all hours of the day, no offence) Sometimes there are reasons for rules, daft as they sound.

woopsie That is one of our terms 16.2hh our max here

 

[Pinkvboots]

Had to pick up droppings from the school immediately couldn't wait until end of schooling session, horses were not allowed to drop hay outside there stables when they were in, I turned up once to find yo had put a grill up on the top half of my door because he was making a mess !

numnah were not allowed to be left on your saddle in the tack room they had to be taken off and put in your locker so none of the hair would drop on the floor, the floor was hoovered and washed everyday and was probably cleaner than most people's houses, all these rules were at the same yard there were many others but these were the most extreme ones I could think of.

 

[Caol Ila]

My best story is the barn in Staten Island, NY, which had the "rule" that you must lead your horse with a stud chain. Any horse, even a well-behaved, gentle one with near-flawless ground manners (mine). I asked why, and the barn owner, who was crazy as a box of frogs in many respects, explained that even a nice, well-trained horse can spook, and what would you do about it with a normal nylon halter?