YO's DIY livery freelancing and using yard facilities?

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milliepup

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Just wondered what others do?
Run a small livery yard which has both DIY and Part livery and I teach and offer services for DIYs if they are away etc. Now I understand that everyone has a personal preference and I do allow other instructors in and if I’m honest there is only one livery that does this.
Recently one of the DIY liveries has started to freelance and have just realised she is now being paid to ride one of the horses at the yard and is using my Arena and facilities to do this.
What do other yard owners do? Is it the norm that they could do this for free or would as someone suggested you charge a minimal arena hire charge as she is earning money from my yard which I have to pay the rent on?
This has happened recently and I wasn’t informed or asked so just wanted others views. 🤔🤔
 
This is one of those tricky weird ones as depends which way you look at it.
One way of looking at it is - the owner is paying the livery so that includes use of facilities etc so does it matter who is riding the horse? Owner/sharer/paid person? As you have still received money for use of facilities for that horse but then it comes down to how you view it - horse / horse and owner etc.
However it would have been polite to inform you of this. Also do you stipulate that all services have to come via you - as if that's the case then yes it is naughty of the owners part!
I do think it's rude that it wasn't mentioned to you.
 
As long as the horse's livery included use of the arena than I think it is fine, especially as you let other trainers use the facilities. It would not really occur to me that they were doing anything wrong. I presume an outside trainer could come and ride on a lesson.

If the horse's livery did not include arena use, or if the rider brought a horse not entitled to arena hire, than that, of course, would be wrong.
 
Red-1 said:
As long as the horse's livery included use of the arena than I think it is fine, especially as you let other trainers use the facilities. It would not really occur to me that they were doing anything wrong. I presume an outside trainer could come and ride on a lesson.

If the horse's livery did not include arena use, or if the rider brought a horse not entitled to arena hire, than that, of course, would be wrong.
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this.
both the owner and the freelancing livery are presumably paying to access the facilities already, so I would say any arrangement they reach between themselves doesn't require any additional payment.
 
As the others have said although you might want to check that the person who is now offering their services has the correct insurance to do this.

I also think it would only have been polite for this to have been discussed with you first.
 
The horse is on livery at your yard and owner is paying for the facilities included in the rent, correct? Owner is just paying someone else to ride it. I wouldn't charge anything, unless they were bringing a horse onto the yard stabled elsewhere. We regularly use to have freelance riders ride horses on the yard, never were they charged.
Wouldn't think telling YO was required either, you know them both already as they're liveries.
 
You could just check they have the correct insurance - but I'm not sure it would adversely impact your care & control insurance either way as long as both owner and freelancer are also your livery clients as well. If it was a rider coming in from outside it would be fair to check.
 
This is not an uncommon question to come across!

It’s completely understandable if you are a YM making a living off the extra services/riding that it can be a bit galling to see someone without the overheads getting the work instead.

There is a fine balance to be had though, especially on the riding/training front. You very much risk loosing liveries if you start stopping that. It’s not out of the question to implement a hire charge for the arena for paid lessons/riding not done by you, but to introduce it retrospectively will create some bad feeling.

You could get away with paid stables services a little easier as it’s not quite so dependant on competency/personality/personal prefersnce
 
Is this a service you would normally offer to your liveries? If so, I think it would have been courteous if both the livery owning the horse and the livery riding the horse had spoken to you about it first. Other than that, it is down to the insurance aspect - the owner's, the freelancer's and yours.

As others have said, the horse would be availing of your facilities whoever was on it, so I don't think that aspect is an issue.
 
Rowreach said:
Is this a service you would normally offer to your liveries? If so, I think it would have been courteous if both the livery owning the horse and the livery riding the horse had spoken to you about it first. Other than that, it is down to the insurance aspect - the owner's, the freelancer's and yours.

As others have said, the horse would be availing of your facilities whoever was on it, so I don't think that aspect is an issue.
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Mixed opinions here. Depends on the yard. The owner is wanting someone to ride, maybe she doesn't want YO to ride. I understand stable jobs, turning out etc the YO could say something as she provides those services too, but if the owner wants a specific person to ride her horse, can't really moan at that just because she doesn't want YO to do it. Maybe she likes how this person rides, or her horse suits the rider, im fussy who rides mine so can see this side of it.
 
In my experience, it's common practice on DIY yards. However, you can set the rules for your yard, although I don't see it as a problem. The liveries are paying for use of the facilities already. I can understand that it deprives you of teaching/ exercising income, but surely, owners should be able to choose who rides their horse ?
 
The insurance is the issue as you do not want to be held responsible for any accidents on your property.
You need to insure that anyone charging to ride a horse. instruct, school etc. has got 'commercial third party public liability insurance' because they are charging for a service. Your insurers or BHS insurance will not cover them if they are charging for their service.
 
as a previous DIY livery it would not occur to me to ask YO if someone else could school my horse. i would prob mention it if the rider was not known to the yard but otherwise wouldnt think it was a problem as i pay for facilities for my horse so makes no difference if its me riding or someone else, IMO
 
PeterNatt said:
The insurance is the issue as you do not want to be held responsible for any accidents on your property.
You need to insure that anyone charging to ride a horse. instruct, school etc. has got 'commercial third party public liability insurance' because they are charging for a service. Your insurers or BHS insurance will not cover them if they are charging for their service.
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Even if they don't have insurance, the rider who charges for their services is still responsible for any claims against them.. It is not YO's responsibility to ensure that someone who is 'running a business' on the premises is correctly insured. Insurance only indemnifies someone against a claim, it doesn't stop people claiming. Should the rider try to claim against YO for something that happened while she was being paid to ride a horse, she would have no cause to claim against YO.
 
Aimeetess said:
Mixed opinions here. Depends on the yard. The owner is wanting someone to ride, maybe she doesn't want YO to ride. I understand stable jobs, turning out etc the YO could say something as she provides those services too, but if the owner wants a specific person to ride her horse, can't really moan at that just because she doesn't want YO to do it. Maybe she likes how this person rides, or her horse suits the rider, im fussy who rides mine so can see this side of it.
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Which is why I said it would be polite to speak to the YO ...
 
Pearlsasinger said:
Even if they don't have insurance, the rider who charges for their services is still responsible for any claims against them.. It is not YO's responsibility to ensure that someone who is 'running a business' on the premises is correctly insured. Insurance only indemnifies someone against a claim, it doesn't stop people claiming. Should the rider try to claim against YO for something that happened while she was being paid to ride a horse, she would have no cause to claim against YO.
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I wouldn't want to test that!

IME insurance companies will look for any way out of a claim, and if it involves getting someone to claim against a different policy, then they will do so. I had to extend my insurance when I ran clinics with visiting instructors, for example, although I was covered for teaching in my own arena, and liveries were covered for riding.
 
Shay said:
You could just check they have the correct insurance - but I'm not sure it would adversely impact your care & control insurance either way as long as both owner and freelancer are also your livery clients as well. If it was a rider coming in from outside it would be fair to check.
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It doesn't matter whether it's a freelancing livery or an outsider - they would still need their own insurance if accepting money for work. Yard owner's Public Liability would not cover someone while they are being paid to work on the premises; and her Employer Liability (if she has it/needs it) will only cover employees who are on the books. It is also highly questionable whether the YO's public liability would cover the horse owner in these circumstances. I doubt very much that it would.
 
Hmmm, difficult one. I'm a YO but not in same position as OP, however.... however, there is something about this that TBH would stick in my craw a bit and I'm not sure I'd be too happy!!

Think OP that you might need to have a re-working of your livery terms and conditions in light of what's happening; you may not be popular for doing it, but it just doesn't seem right to me that a livery is offering a service - using YOUR facilities dammit! - which you are also offering as the YO (and would naturally expect renumeration for!).

Seems to me you may be shooting yourself in the foot.........
 
If it’s a horse already on livery at your yard then I don’t see why someone would pay to use the arena twice. You can of course make a rule that only you are allowed to school liveries horses but if I was a livery I wouldn’t be too happy if I was told who had to school my horse!
 
When you allow other instructors on the yard, do you charge them to use the arena, or is arena use included in the livery's cost? If the former, the rider-who-is-charging should be paying. If the latter, then why should this person be treated differently, just because they are also one of your liveries?

However, my yard always requires proof of an instructor's insurance before allowing them to teach at the yard. I'd definitely check that the rider-who-is-charging has appropriate insurance.
 
JanetGeorge said:
It doesn't matter whether it's a freelancing livery or an outsider - they would still need their own insurance if accepting money for work. Yard owner's Public Liability would not cover someone while they are being paid to work on the premises; and her Employer Liability (if she has it/needs it) will only cover employees who are on the books. It is also highly questionable whether the YO's public liability would cover the horse owner in these circumstances. I doubt very much that it would.
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JG obviously explained what I was trying to say, so much better!

YO will NOT be held liable for an injury which occurs while livery is riding a paying customer's horse. A claim could still be made against rider/PC as appropriate even if neither had insurance. It seems to bee a widely held misapprehension that you can't be claimed against unless you have insurance - that is not the case!
 
milliepup said:
Just wondered what others do?
Run a small livery yard which has both DIY and Part livery and I teach and offer services for DIYs if they are away etc. Now I understand that everyone has a personal preference and I do allow other instructors in and if I’m honest there is only one livery that does this.
Recently one of the DIY liveries has started to freelance and have just realised she is now being paid to ride one of the horses at the yard and is using my Arena and facilities to do this.
What do other yard owners do? Is it the norm that they could do this for free or would as someone suggested you charge a minimal arena hire charge as she is earning money from my yard which I have to pay the rent on?
This has happened recently and I wasn’t informed or asked so just wanted others views. 🤔🤔
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I also run a livery yard with Diy and Part, I am also a BHS but don't practice as I have too much to do, we have other instructors coming in to teach liveries and I have no Quarms about it at all and no exclusions in place. Use of facilities are included in the rent.
 
Pearlsasinger said:
JG obviously explained what I was trying to say, so much better!

YO will NOT be held liable for an injury which occurs while livery is riding a paying customer's horse. A claim could still be made against rider/PC as appropriate even if neither had insurance. It seems to bee a widely held misapprehension that you can't be claimed against unless you have insurance - that is not the case!
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But you've rather contradicted yourself there PaS. If the horse owner or the freelancer decides that an accident is the result of the YO's negligence (like a hole in the arena surface, or some other action of the YO that is deemed to cause an accident) then they could well make a claim against her, and because the freelancer is charging for her services, the YO is probably not insured.
 
Rowreach said:
But you've rather contradicted yourself there PaS. If the horse owner or the freelancer decides that an accident is the result of the YO's negligence (like a hole in the arena surface, or some other action of the YO that is deemed to cause an accident) then they could well make a claim against her, and because the freelancer is charging for her services, the YO is probably not insured.
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That's certainly a possible - and the best thing for the OP to do is to contact her insurers and ask THEIR advice. I'm pretty sure that their advice would be NOT to allow ANY freelancers to ride or teach on her property uness they had their own Public Liability insurance, AS A FREELANCE Rider/Instructor.
 
In the past I've had a horse on diy and paid another livery to school him once a week. Quite honestly I didn't even think about asking the yard owner if that was ok, as part of my livery I had access to the school so I wouldn't have been impressed if I was asked to pay twice for it. What difference does it make who rides the horse when the owner has already paid for access to the facilities?

Riding was one of the services available from the yard but it's such a personal thing having someone else ride your horse, there is no way I would have let just anyone ride, I was paying for someone better than me to school him. In my mind it's very different to stuff like turning out and mucking out where it doesn't matter who does it, if she'd started offering that that would be a different case.
 
Rowreach said:
But you've rather contradicted yourself there PaS. If the horse owner or the freelancer decides that an accident is the result of the YO's negligence (like a hole in the arena surface, or some other action of the YO that is deemed to cause an accident) then they could well make a claim against her, and because the freelancer is charging for her services, the YO is probably not insured.
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This would be the same if the livery was schooling her own horse though. Anyone who suffers an accident due to negligence could potentially claim against the YO. However, I do think that a paid rider should have insurance.What surprises me is the number of outside instructors who teach on livery yards and having sole use of the school for hours without paying the YO for the facilities.
 
Isn't the critical issue that a paid rider using the school may well not be covered by the YO's insurance whereas a recreational rider presumably is? In other words, it's the money concerned that invalidates the YO's insurance?
 
I think there are two different issues as stake here:

1 -Whether the livery being paid to ride has the correct insurances.

2 - Whether or not it's right for the YO to charge extra for use of the school when someone else is being paid to ride.

Taking point 1 first, I think the OP does need to ask this question. I work in H&S and under H&S law I have a responsibility to ensure others working on our site ( ie contractors) do so safely and have the relevant insurances. I can't see why this situation would be much different.

2 - I guess this is more of a moral dilemma. If by having outside people on the OP's site it costs extra money on his/her insurance then I guess a charge is justified, but I would explain to liveries why this is otherwise it just comes across as greed.
If not costing anything, I would just leave it. My YO charges us liveries for the arena use when having an external instructor out and I have to say I pay through gritted teeth especially as ours is barely maintained. I now go to my instructors yard for lessons. Her arena is full size with a lovely surface and mirrors and not a deep track or weeds growing round the edge in sight.

Our YO also does not let us have paid riders in to school as she sees it as her job. I have in the past paid her to ride for exercise while I'm away rather than actual schooling and came back to find she had only lunged ( I did get a discount because if this). In the past when I wanted my mare schooling I did consider paying a friend but just saying friend was doing me a favour because of this.
 
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