What are the barmiest yard rules you've had to put up with...

Years ago we had a barmy, pretty aggressive male YO who decided that I hadn't cleared up my horse's poo from the yard and dumped it on my car bonnet. It wasn't mine and the other 3 piles of poo left by the alcoholic he was s***ing in lieu of livery were left well alone. When my friend and I told we were leaving, he got right in our faces and said we'd be begging to come back within a month and he would take great pleasure in telling us where to go. Funny how 15 years later I still haven't given going back a second thought. And I was the one who took great pleasure in telling him where to go when I started working in the local pub while at uni and (with the landlord's permission) refused to serve him. He'd have to wait for one of the other staff to have his beer.
 
Only the owners of the horses are allowed to ride their horses in the school. (So if horse belongs to mother & daughter, only the mother can ride in the school!)

So on a yard with no hacking, your sharer would be pretty damn bored...
 
wyrdsister said:
Oh boy, I've been on some crackers! My favourite of the insane rules mostly belong to one place & either weren't declared at the outset or were brought in later.

- Not allowed to pay the farrier directly, must do it through the yard owner at a hiked up rate to cover his own horses too. (I didn't & theoretically left the place in debt as I'd never paid the owner for shoeing. My horse was barefoot & I paid the farrier myself).
- You must turn your horse out in the new fields that have been fenced. With ditches. Horses don't jump ditches. (I was doing low level 1 day events with mine. I refused).
- The deal breaker was no more ad hoc turnout, horses can only go out for 2 hours & must be brought in by the new YM. Not a chance. Don't want them standing in & I'd seen her idea of how to handle horses!

There were more, but I think I've blotted them from my mind!
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A field being fenced with ditches? Seriously? What were they thinking, other than saving money on proper fencing?!!
 
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That was all he was thinking of! He wasn't really a horsey man. He was stunned when two novices did put their ponies in the field & they hopped straight out! Pretty sure they ended up electric fencing it themselves :-/
 
Wimbles said:
One yard we went to look at would only take horses 10 years and older, the YO refused to entertain my 9 year old...............
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Pfftt, that's so silly! There was a 5yr old at my old yard and he was as steady as anything, so easy to deal with! Then my darling Ned, who is 16, can still act like a twit!!

Thankfully I don't have any where I am, it's so wonderful :D
 
Cheiro1 said:
We had this for a while, purely because YO's insurance company wanted to charge her nearly double for the privilege of allowing external instructors!!
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You were lied to...any instructor worth his or her salt comes insured up to the eyballs (it doesn't cost a prohibitive amount) and that can always be checked. The owner's insurance company would not care. And if for some reason they did, plenty others wouldn't.

This rule always comes from a YO who also 'teaches' and hasn't the ego to withstand their liveries choosing to be instructed by someone else.
 
Goldenstar said:
I would love this ,
So good for the horses to learn to put up with stuff like this .
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It has been educaational for them but when my son got injured because a member of staff decided to take one of the large parasol umbrellas down when he was drawing level with it it was rather too much even for his saint of a pony to cope with. 9f course there is no accident book to fill in for ya4d use either. Its also a huge worry with competition horses with strangers alliwed to wander around the yard quite happily feeding the horses any thing they feel like.
 
Boulty said:
Oh lemme think... Erm bathing with buckets only absolutely no using the hosepipe
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I had this. Could only use the hose pipe on the horse if injured, otherwise you were stood next to the horse with a hose pipe filling a bucket to wash the horse, which wasted more water than using the hosepipe!

Had to feed yards mouldy haylage and even though horse was losing weight I was feeding too much and had to half the amount. Only 15lbs of haylage even though it was sopping wet was the same as 15lb of dry dusty rubbish. Not allowed to buy own in.

Straw only yard as the muck heap removal won't take shavings even though they spread it/ dumped it on their own land
 
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I only have two rules on my yard.

Do not bring your horse round to my house and let it do mad piaffe on my newly laid patio while you shout for me to come and examine a loose shoe
Do not walk into my house in muddy boots, and stand in the living room doorway staring at me while I am trying to talk to my mother on the phone!

Other than those - I'm pretty laid back, as long as everyone is sensible!
 
Illusion100 said:
To get fresh straw, you could not transport it in a wheelbarrow or a sack, you could only transport fresh straw if it was first put in a sack then the sack transported in the barrow. Dirty straw to transported in wheelbarrow...... I could never get my head around that one!
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I do understand this one.

Clean, new straw slithers around, blows away easily so can be messy.

Dirty straw is more stable and more likely to stay in the barrow.

When I did my training many decades ago we were actually taught how to fill a wheel barrow to the maximum in a way that prevented muck falling off it.

I've torn my hair out at some places I've worked because of the mess people make when mucking out. Barns make some people lazy, no wind blowing straw around the place. You could always see the boxes Id mucked out as outside the door was still clean.
 
Just to add that I'm now happy somewhere that the only daft rules are those enforced by the resident goats :) (Ie all your food belongs to us and we WILL climb on your car roof to get to it. Anyone eating anything WILL get mobbed!)
 
Years ago I was on a yard that didn't allow me to ride my horse in the outdoor school because his feet were too big (apparently). He was allowed in the indoor school - presumably because we were hidden from sight and no-one could get distressed by the sight of his (apparently) big feet :-) Everyone called the place 'the funny farm' for some unknown reason:-)
 
SkewbyTwo said:
You were lied to...any instructor worth his or her salt comes insured up to the eyballs (it doesn't cost a prohibitive amount) and that can always be checked. The owner's insurance company would not care. And if for some reason they did, plenty others wouldn't.

This rule always comes from a YO who also 'teaches' and hasn't the ego to withstand their liveries choosing to be instructed by someone else.
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Nope I can assure you it wasn't a lie, it doesn't matter if an instructor has their own insurance, they can still turn around and sue the yard they are teaching on!! YO argued the case and we now DO have external instructors again (not that many people choose to, we have no need to!).

And FWIW YO is a BHSII who has evented to a high level and then more recently ridden and trained to Inter1 so no need for the "teaches" bit!!
 
Tnavas said:
I do understand this one.

Clean, new straw slithers around, blows away easily so can be messy.

Dirty straw is more stable and more likely to stay in the barrow.

When I did my training many decades ago we were actually taught how to fill a wheel barrow to the maximum in a way that prevented muck falling off it.

I've torn my hair out at some places I've worked because of the mess people make when mucking out. Barns make some people lazy, no wind blowing straw around the place. You could always see the boxes Id mucked out as outside the door was still clean.
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I was also taught as a child a method to stack high a wheelbarrow with muck without it falling out, it works, well unless the wind is high or you forget how to walk!

I could understand the transporting of fresh straw in a sack rather than a wheelbarrow but both?!
 
Some of these, no nearly all of these yards sound horrendous! So Thankyou all that posted for reminding me of how lucky I am to keep my mare on an old ex dairy farm where I have a decent barn stable a good big field with a shelter and good fencing, an automatic trough and I don't poo pick if I don't want to. I come and go I please, use whatever I like when I like and live/work across the road.
Nope, we don't have a school, a XC or decent off road hacking. There are no services and the retired dairy farmer knows zilch! But all I can say is.....praise the Lord!!😀
 
Just thought of more!!
Banned from turning my horse out because he rolls and might make 'patches'!!!!

Only certain people have to fill field troughs, others don't!!

Actually thrown off one yard as my horse pulled a face at the YO!!!
 
npage123 said:
A field being fenced with ditches? Seriously? What were they thinking, other than saving money on proper fencing?!!
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My boy's field only had a 5 foot ditch on one side when we arrived. No-one else jumped out, just mine, repeatedly. I used to send the kids across but he had to cat leap back from a narrow footpath. Once that was fenced, he took to pushing through a hole surrounded by brambles and barbed wire. The YO suggested I leave off his rug so he'd stop pushing out because it would hurt. Or the fencing could be repaired. Hmm.
 
I'm loving this thread and only half way through. Thought I would add my own experience.

1) no supplements added to feed unless you paid a fee of £10 per supplement per feed
2) no riding on a Monday
3) No riding in the arena when lessons where on, which could start up when you were already in the arena in which case you had to leave. Happened regularly on weekends
4) No riding between lessons
5) Turnout only between 11am - 3pm on weekends. You have to turn your own animal out yourself. Penalty fee of £5 per 5 minute slots over the allocated time horse was over time in the field - field was 5 minute walk from the yard so YO had to walk to field to check who was out and wait to see who wasn't in for whatever length of time at the field gate
6) £5 fee for any skip out done above and beyond the YO muck out
7) £5 charge for any messages left without being cleaned up be it from a Dog or horse (understandable in a way)
8) £5 fee per rug change
9) £10 fee for any horse that needed treatment for injury per treatment - such as cold hosing, bandages replaced or poultices etc.
10) £10 fee to hold horse for vet or farrier if owner can't make it
12) horses to be tubed no excuses for worms every three months
13) horses to be checked by a vet every three months for a fee of £50 per horse - not to include handling fee of £10 - sometimes this was not announced


Now you are probably thinking that this is a DIY yard, in which case then yes the above fees are understandable. But it was not it was full livery at over £540 a month per horse. So full livery was advertised at £125 per week. Except there was some funny maths applied...

125 X 52 (52 weeks in a year) = 6500 Fair enough
Except some months have 5 weeks so to accommodate that the following applied
6500 divided by 12 ( 12 months in the year) = 541 per month which was then divided by 4 (most months had 4 weeks so why not use this number) so per week the fee was 135.41 (not the 125 advertised) Which you only got told about after signing the contract at 125 per week

You had to pay monthly only. Not per week

So instead of charging you for the extra week when it occurred, you got charged monthly for the extra weeks on the random few months that had it. Which aren't that many and TBH not many liveries ever got to stay for a month that had 5 weeks because they left when they got huge bills at the end of the month for extras, some of which they didn't even know existed and weren't declared!
 
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I once had a phonecall complaining that my 5 horses were running in the field! Apparently if I put up a shelter that would stop them because they would stand in that all day instead. They were all babies, the oldest was only 3 so I don't think a shelter would have stopped them playing.
 
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Auslander said:
I only have two rules on my yard.

Do not bring your horse round to my house and let it do mad piaffe on my newly laid patio while you shout for me to come and examine a loose shoe
Do not walk into my house in muddy boots, and stand in the living room doorway staring at me while I am trying to talk to my mother on the phone!

Other than those - I'm pretty laid back, as long as everyone is sensible!
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Chortles. Now who on earth would do that?!

P
 
kamili said:
I'm loving this thread and only half way through. Thought I would add my own experience.

1) no supplements added to feed unless you paid a fee of £10 per supplement per feed
2) no riding on a Monday
3) No riding in the arena when lessons where on, which could start up when you were already in the arena in which case you had to leave. Happened regularly on weekends
4) No riding between lessons
5) Turnout only between 11am - 3pm on weekends. You have to turn your own animal out yourself. Penalty fee of £5 per 5 minute slots over the allocated time horse was over time in the field - field was 5 minute walk from the yard so YO had to walk to field to check who was out and wait to see who wasn't in for whatever length of time at the field gate
6) £5 fee for any skip out done above and beyond the YO muck out
7) £5 charge for any messages left without being cleaned up be it from a Dog or horse (understandable in a way)
8) £5 fee per rug change
9) £10 fee for any horse that needed treatment for injury per treatment - such as cold hosing, bandages replaced or poultices etc.
10) £10 fee to hold horse for vet or farrier if owner can't make it
12) horses to be tubed no excuses for worms every three months
13) horses to be checked by a vet every three months for a fee of £50 per horse - not to include handling fee of £10 - sometimes this was not announced


Now you are probably thinking that this is a DIY yard, in which case then yes the above fees are understandable. But it was not it was full livery at over £540 a month per horse. So full livery was advertised at £125 per week. Except there was some funny maths applied...

125 X 52 (52 weeks in a year) = 6500 Fair enough
Except some months have 5 weeks so to accommodate that the following applied
6500 divided by 12 ( 12 months in the year) = 541 per month which was then divided by 4 (most months had 4 weeks so why not use this number) so per week the fee was 135.41 (not the 125 advertised) Which you only got told about after signing the contract at 125 per week

You had to pay monthly only. Not per week

So instead of charging you for the extra week when it occurred, you got charged monthly for the extra weeks on the random few months that had it. Which aren't that many and TBH not many liveries ever got to stay for a month that had 5 weeks because they left when they got huge bills at the end of the month for extras, some of which they didn't even know existed and weren't declared!
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I think your (presumably ex) yard wins.
 
That's a bit dodgy, to say the least! If you change the odd word, you don't think people will notice?

I guess they are the benevolent overlords of this forum, so they can do what they like. I think some of the original posts were better written, though.
 
* No supplements, none, never, at all, because "horses are not pigs, they don't need to eat EVERYTHING". Yes, you read that right. I sneaked in supplements with cored apples, stuffed with the daily dose. It was for a horse I leased in that particular yard, then bought and ran for the hills with him to a place where supplements were not banned.

* Never tell what goes on in the yard to "outsiders". Even if the "outsider" is an owner of a horse who lives at the yard while the owner is studying abroad. The YO was telling her sweet lies, while I contacted her and sent her pictures of the empty hayrack in her geldings' box at 8pm, and her leaser using a horribly unfitting saddle. She started asking questions and boy that upset the YO! Ran for the hills from this yard as well (the YO turned out to be completely mental!)

* At one yard, there was a great, big whiteboard on the stable wall on which the rules yard were written. They often changed without a notice, for example, boarders (full service at that!) were to rake the indoor school, because it was never dragged by the staff. The YO arranged when everyone was to do the duty without first talking over if and when anyone is available to do that, so anyone could suddenly get scolded for not having raked, although nobody had asked if they even could and if they had seen the whiteboard. No calling or even sending a text was ever done.

* Only the staff is to touch the hay, even if your horse is to get unlimited amount and he is standing in an empty stall, stressed because of the lack of food.

* You will be passively aggressively scolded for not letting your horse to be used in a tourist hacking tour because one of the YO's horses has become lame. You never applied to using your horse in these rides, you specifically stated it is not to be done, yet you are still to blame that the YO "HAD to put a lame horse into work" because of you after booking one too many riders.


So grateful to be on a quiet, very private yard now... With no rules, because we are all adults and no such nonsense ever happens.
 
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