What's the strangest yard rule you've come across?

How about:
YO wanting 7 days written prior notice of anyone visiting me at the yard, stating their names, addresses, time of arrival, length and reason for visit!

Only being allowed to spend 3 hours a day "adequate amount of time" with my horses unless riding!

No soaking of haynets with hose, or any other excess use of hose ie: hosing legs for any reason.

Needless to say I am not at that yard anymore!
 
So glad I've never had to keep mine on a livery yard.

I've always rented grazing and stabling on farms where we've just been left to it. It sounds to me like some YOs are unreasonable control freaks!
 
Ive done the horses at college finished by 8am which was a pain. fortunately I dont get hangovers :D so I got to be the one loudly trilling 'Morning!'

Aside from that, not a yard Ive been on as I keep mine at home, but Ive heard from friends at a yard close by that if your horse poos on the way out to be ridden/ turned out/ anything, you have to stop/get off if riding, tie horse up/ put back in stable, pick the poo up and hose and scrub the concrete before continuing because if you left the poo until you were back it might have stained the concrete! :eek: :D.
 
Our yard is really different as we are a charity riding school with horses on working livery, don't have any weird rules but the yard is closed on a monday. With the amount of people we get here one day a week is needed for the horses and staff to rest. Unless we are on foal watch which we have been for a bloody long time now!

Our liveries don't complain as they pay £25pw and that includes everything except shoes and vets bills, they get their horses exercised, wormed, rugged, all bedding, hay and feed included and trips to shows and so on... Think they can cope without riding on mondays if they get all of that!
 
Odd ones include- not at these yards now!

horse got to be out by 7:30 otherwise YO does it and you get charged

Postage stamp turnout (mud) but not allowed to put hay out

No instructor on site but if you bring an instructor you have to pay to hire the school! £15 a time !!

£6.50 every time the muck heap is emptied even when your horse is on grass livery!

No jumping in school

You can't turn out friends horses or do them for each other as it takes business away from YO and if you did she charged you as if she had done it!

Oh don't you love livery yards! Thank god I've found a nice one at last :)
 
Rules from yards I am no longer at:

If hay is put out in the field, please rake any leftovers a the end of the day!

Never sure in winter if horses were allowed out, farmer would put sign out at 8am saying if they were to stay in, or if they were allowed out, what time they had to be in by. So if you had to leave for work (like most people do) before 8 you had to second guess! The bring in time could vary from 12 til 5 so you could never make any arrangements.

No using the outside track in the indoor school to prevent 'wearing' a track!

Only allowed to use half the school lights to save money if you were DIY (she didn't make enough money for us to let us use all of them).
 
somethingorother said:
These are nuts!

The strangest i had (normal by these standards) was on a reasonably sized DIY livery, where you had to ask permission before having anyone else there with you. So if i wanted to take a friend with me to spend a couple of hours with the horse, or to bring in from the field on the way to/from somewhere, i had to ask permission :/
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I don't agree, I think that is completely sensible for security reasons! And as a livery I don't want strange people wandering around my horses. The size of the yard is irrelevant. People bring their friends up to ours some times but they are introduced/ known about and challenged if they are not known.
 
i once went to look at a rather nice DIY yard - BUT liveries were not allowed onto the yard before 8am & you were not allowed to keep any tack on the yard - as i had 2 horses at the time & 2 sharers - the logistics of getting tack to the right person for the right day would have needed its own spreadsheet:)

oh and the yard that allowed you to source yor own hay/haylige but charged you ground rental to store them
 
I've only ever been on DIY yards, but some of the rules endorsed were:

Haynets to be hung up on the back wall to the left only, with buckets on same side but at the front

Bedding must stop at a certain length, so there is about a 2ft gap from front of stable to bed

Lead ropes must be tied properly after use every single time and clipped onto headcollar, which must be placed on headcollar hook

No one is allowed down to yard after 6pm

No bareback riding at all

Friends/Family must stay with you at all times (i.e, you had to take them to turn out/bring your horses in - they couldn't just wait at the stable or they must be escorted to the toilet etc)

Water for anything other than for buckets was £1 per minute

No loitering down yard - ride, turnout, muck out but no socialising outside of these



Weirdly, my first yard had many many rules, but what I couldn't understand was them allowing the field gate to be opened at 5.30 and letting all the horses come flying in from the field, to make their own way back to their tables. Basically, you left their stable door open and stood out their way when they all came galloping in :eek:
 
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I read the Hartpury livery rules only last week: you can't wear any bright colours at all, and absolutely no hoodies. I found that odd as our entire yard live in hoodies and bright, contrast joddies most of the time!
 
Vicki_Krystal said:
A friend, who managed 3 weeks at this yard, had some very odd rules, however the barmiest rule ever -

You had to pick your horses feet out into a bucket.. then return the mud to the field the horse was turned out in..

The yard was always empty - not surprising really.
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Have just had such a laugh at this!!! What did they think was going to happen? You'd gradually steal the field in your horse's feet? Am wondering what happened if you were picking out feet after a hack. Did that have to be into a bucket or was it OK just to sweep that mud up? And where would you return that mud to?

So glad I'm not on a yard but am finding these rules very entertaining!
 
I always said YO's are a special breed of people lol. Some of these are funny, luckily I have a sane YO who does not impose silly rules lol
 
Reading these I feel soooo sooooo lucky where I am!! Not only is it not b*tchy in the slightest,...there are NO written down rules or contract! The rules that were given to me when I moved there were 'you pay at the beginning of the month for the month in advance' totally fair 'no dogs to be off the lead on the yard' totally fair and you only need to see the gaurd dog once to realise a dog off the lead would be it's dinner! And to keep the bit outside your stable and tack room swept. Other than that, you are left to get on with it! Very quickly people got to know me and the little girly and got used to either the OH or my mum around too and doesnt bother them is either are doing the girly for me. There is no rule on times, or turn out/in times, use of school is included and as long as you pick up any poo at the end, they are happy. Pays to be at a working farm! They are no nonsense and very fair, but if you c*ck up - my goodness does the farmer let you know hes not happy!!! Oh yeah, and all hay and straw you take is done on trust at the end of the month, pay for what you use. All of this makes a very very pleasent envionment and as a result, no-one takes the mick and the yard is usually spotless!
 
Caol Ila said:
The uni barn (in the US) where I kept my horse when I was an undergrad was quite posh but when I started uni, it was still relatively normal.

Then just before I started final year, we got a new barn manager who wanted the yard to have a certain look. We got issued a new set of barn rules, one of which was that all horses must look "neat," be trimmed, mane pulled, etc.

My horse looks like this:
IMAG0013.jpg


The barn manager told me she wasn't happy with Gypsum's mane and feathers as it didn't suit the character she felt the stable should have. I said, "I've been here for three years. This is my final year. You're really going to make me pull her mane? (by the way, I wasn't, as it took me years to grow that mane out) And I'm not touching the feathers!"

She said, "Uhhh.... Do you show?"

I told her that I didn't.

She responded somewhat unhappily, "I guess it's okay then."

Even weirder (indeed, it gets weirder) was the the stable I kept her at for a summer in Staten Island, New York, which had a rule stating that all horses, unless wearing a bridle, should be lead with a stud chain. The owner, who was a bit barmy at the best of times, claimed that if a horse spooked and jumped forward when wearing a normal flat halter (headcollar ;) ), how were you going to stop them?
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ia it wrong of me to agree with feather off and mane pulling on your horse ??? :-)
 
Paint Me Proud said:
someone I know used to be on a yard where you werent allowed to tie your horse up outside the stable. I just dont understand that one!

But if you fancy making yourself feel happy about your yard read this livery contract for a local equestrian centre, it is a brilliant place but very strict - http://www.middletonequestrian.co.uk/downloads/liverycontract2009.pdf
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Sometimes tying up outside your stable is dangerous of theres not enough space to get horses and people past safely, This was a rule on a yard i was on, it was probably the best rule on the yard.
 
Kallibear said:
Friend was at a very limiting yard for a while. You weren't allowed up after 6pm or at all on mon or tues! Horses were full livery only but i'd still expect to be able to see my horse as and when I choose, within reason (i.e not 2am). I wouldn't tolerate that at all but she thought it was the norm until she moved up north!
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That's bonkers!!! Didn't the YO realise that not all of us who own horses are ladies that lunch and some of us have to work hard to keep them??!! I often leave the yard for a hack after 6pm as that's the time I like riding in the summer!!
 
A yard I went to view before I last moved said that nobody was to jump over 2ft6?!?! When I queried it she said it was due to the risk of accidents, needless to say I didn't move there!
 
maisie06 said:
That's bonkers!!! Didn't the YO realise that not all of us who own horses are ladies that lunch and some of us have to work hard to keep them??!! I often leave the yard for a hack after 6pm as that's the time I like riding in the summer!!
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Ive been known to ride at around 10.30 pm and later! don't think they'd like me very much lol
 
Oh I have quite a few to add!!

"Horses are not allowed in fields when raining"
"Horses to be brought in from fields by 2pm"
"No lunging in school" - which I sort of understand.
"If horses have ripped up fields, put back down the turf"
"Every visitor must be taken to Yard Owner"

There are a few more and needless to say - I have moved!
 
I know of a yard where you can only use their water buckets provided - otherwise they won't refill them for you! In all fairness, they're very good water buckets and they do provide them with no charge, but I did find it a bit odd.. Trugs for water were banned xx
 
I actually understand the rule at colleges and uni yards that horses should be done before certain times. They want the yard to clean and tidy incase any visitors come. Plus they can make sure everyone is doing their horses. We had one pre farrier at the college yard who hardly ever turned up to do his horse. Mucking out was done once in a blue moon and he regularly turned up drunk. In the end he managed to basically give the horse to another student who actually looked after the horse who lovely and only 3
 
I love my yard - there are 4 rules:
Pay by 28th of month
Everyone worms on the same program
Keep the muck heap tidy
Poo pick your field regularly

All common sense really. Never been on a yard with bonkers rules, don't think I'd last long!
 
The last livery yard I was on was a little strange. One of the rules (and they changed every few days) was that you HAD to open the bags of pony nuts in a certain way. If you didn't YO went nuts. She even wrote on the said bag "how to instructions". Surly an open bag is an open bag no matter how you open it.
 
some of these are utterly barmy, but honestly, until you've seen how weird and unreasonable some liveries can be... i used to have a few liveries, and hardly any rules. until i had a livery who thought it was absolutely fine to turn up at 10.30pm at night, put all the lights on (big internal barn) and the radio on loud, and groom her horse...
or the one who brought up some friends who had kids, and the boys ran around like lunatics screaming the place down before getting their willies out and playing "i can pee more accurately than you can into the tractor tyre tracks". i am not kidding. you couldn't make that up.
or the one who asked if she could borrow my tiny quiet clippers to hog her horse, i said yes and went out for a hack, came back an hour later to find a half-clipped horse which she insisted on finishing with my clippers because the blades were finer than hers.
i think at that point i decided that maybe a couple of rules might be necessary after all... ;) ;)
 
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