Horse Livery Agreement: Full, Part and DIY Terms Drafted With AI

A livery agreement should name the parties and the horse, state exactly which livery type applies and who does each daily task, then cover fees, notice, insurance, feed and turnout duties, health and emergency decisions, rules, liability and termination. AI can draft each clause from a facts sheet you fill in, but a solicitor must review the result.

Search results for this are mostly blank templates, and they fail in a predictable way: they say "livery" and never say who brings the horse in when it rains or gives the evening feed on a Sunday. Full, part and DIY mean different things at different yards, so the schedule of duties, not the label, is what prevents an argument at the stable door. Treat everything here as a drafting method with examples for discussion, not legal advice. What is enforceable depends on where you operate, and a solicitor should read the final document before anyone signs.

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A label is not a schedule: who does what under each livery type

Commonly, full livery means the yard does the daily care and sometimes more. Part livery means the yard does some of it, usually feeding, mucking out or turnout on set days. DIY livery means the owner does the care and supplies feed and bedding, while the yard provides a stable, a field and facilities. Grass livery is a field without stabling. Reference sources describe these levels in slightly different ways, and yards invent hybrids such as weekday part livery, so the agreement has to spell out the split. The reliable method is a table in which every cell is a decision.

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This split is illustrative; yours will differ, and that is the point. Notice three things. Every row has an owner. A cell such as "the yard in the morning, the owner in the evening" needs times and days written beside it, including weekends. And DIY still involves the yard in some tasks and in one contingency: what happens when a DIY owner cannot come because of illness or travel. Many disputes begin in that gap, so settle it in advance. A sensible default is that the owner arranges cover, and if they do not, the yard may provide basic care at a stated extras price.

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Stage 1: the facts sheet the AI drafts from

An assistant drafts well from facts and badly from guesses, so fill this in before you ask for a single clause. The figures are illustrative. Anything left in square brackets is a decision only you can take, and it should stay in brackets rather than be filled in by the assistant.

THE YARD: [trading name], [address], [contact]
THE OWNER: [name, address, phone, email]; second emergency contact: [name, phone]
THE HORSE: name; age; colour and markings; height; passport or registration number and microchip number where it has them; vaccination dates
LIVERY TYPE AND START DATE: [full / part / DIY / grass]; [date]
FEES: full $620 a month, part $430, DIY $260; paid in advance by the 1st by bank transfer; deposit [one month / none]; reviewed each [month] with [TO DECIDE] weeks' written notice
EXTRAS: holding for the farrier $15 a visit; vet attendance $25 a visit; extra feed given on request $8; short-term cover for a DIY owner $[TO DECIDE] a day
NOTICE: [TO DECIDE] weeks, in writing, either side
IMMEDIATE TERMINATION: [TO DECIDE: for example arrears after a written reminder; serious breach of yard rules; danger to people or animals]
FEED AND FORAGE: who supplies what for each livery type; owner-approved feeds only; changes in writing and logged
TURNOUT: hours; groups; the yard may keep horses in when fields are unsafe or closed to protect them
HEALTH: named vet; named farrier; vaccination and worming policy; yard may call the vet in an emergency at the owner's cost; owner reachable on [numbers]; [TO DECIDE: what happens if the owner cannot be reached]
INSURANCE: owner keeps third-party liability cover and horse insurance and shows the certificates each year; yard's own policy details: [insurer, policy number]
YARD RULES: riding hours; arena use; hats; children; dogs; visitors; gates; parking; storage

Stage 2: draft one clause at a time, with strict instructions

Do not ask for the whole agreement in one go. The result is long, smooth and full of invented detail. Ask for one clause, in a prompt that forbids the habits that cause trouble.

You are helping a livery yard owner draft a livery agreement for review by their solicitor. This is a drafting aid, not legal advice.

Use ONLY the facts sheet below. Rules:
1. Plain English, short numbered clauses, defined terms in bold on first use (the Yard, the Owner, the Horse, the Fees).
2. Wherever the facts sheet gives no figure, period or decision, write [TO DECIDE] and add it to a list at the end. Never choose a figure yourself.
3. Do not cite any law, statute, regulation or case, and do not say that a clause is enforceable or legal.
4. Draft one clause at a time. Start with: (a) the schedule of duties for each livery type, (b) fees and payment, (c) notice and termination.
5. After each clause, add a line "Solicitor to check:" naming the single point most likely to need legal judgement.
6. If two facts conflict, stop and tell me instead of choosing.

Facts sheet:
[paste the sheet]

Here is the kind of output the notice clause comes back with on a good run (illustrative):

7. Notice and termination
7.1 Either party may end this agreement by giving the other [TO DECIDE] weeks' written notice.
7.2 The Fees remain payable until the end of the notice period, even if the Horse leaves earlier.
7.3 The Yard may end this agreement immediately by written notice if: (a) the Owner has not paid the Fees within [TO DECIDE] days of a written reminder; (b) the Owner or anyone acting for them seriously or repeatedly breaks the Yard Rules; or (c) [TO DECIDE].
Solicitor to check: whether 7.2 and 7.3 are fair, and how written notice must be delivered.

Compare that with what a loose prompt produces. The usual first-run errors are these. The assistant adds a right to "sell or rehome the Horse if the Fees are unpaid for 30 days", which nobody told it and which is the most legally sensitive sentence in the whole agreement. It writes "the Yard accepts no liability for any injury, loss or death of the Horse however caused", a blanket exclusion, the kind of clause a solicitor will want to rewrite or remove. It quietly picks a notice period and presents it as normal. And it cites a statute by name. Delete all four. The rules in the prompt exist because these are the four habits worth forbidding, and the "Solicitor to check" line gives you the shortlist to take to the review.

Fees, notice and termination across the three types

Fees. Define the fee by pointing at the schedule, so that "the full livery fee" means the yard column of the full livery schedule and nothing else. Say when it is due (in advance is simplest), how it is paid, what happens when it is late, and how an increase is announced. Decide whether the fee continues while the horse is away competing or on holiday. Many yards keep charging because the stable is still held, so decide and say which. List extras with prices, so that "could you also" becomes a priced request. For a horse needing special care, such as additional feeds or medication, an extras line prevents an unspoken expansion of the service.

Notice. Notice runs in writing, for either side, for a period you choose, and the fee runs to its end even if the horse leaves early. Using the same period for both sides is simplest to explain, and a shorter route for serious breaches should be separate and specific. Say how notice is given: whether an email counts, and to which address.

Termination. List the grounds in plain terms: fees unpaid after a written reminder, serious breach of the yard rules, behaviour of the horse or its people that endangers others, an infectious disease risk that cannot be managed, or the sale or closure of the yard. Then say what happens next: the horse is removed by a date, belongings go with it, records and the passport are handed back. What a yard may do when a horse is left after the end date or the fees stay unpaid is a point where the law tends to be specific and to differ from place to place. Do not accept AI-drafted wording there. Take it from your solicitor.

Insurance, feed, turnout and health

Insurance. Equine insurers describe public liability as cover for negligence claims by third parties, and care, custody and control as cover if a horse is injured or becomes ill while in the care of the yard owner or employees, usually with a limit per horse and often as an optional extra rather than part of the basic policy. Employers' liability covers staff and may extend to volunteers. Do not assume any of this is in your policy. Ask your insurer, in writing, whether the policy covers other people's horses in your care and for which activities (turnout, exercising, lunging, lessons, loading), what the limit and the excess are, whether visiting professionals must hold their own cover, and whether DIY horses are treated differently from full ones. A specialist equine broker can answer these quickly. In the agreement, require the owner to keep third-party liability cover and horse insurance, to show the certificates every year, and to understand that the yard's policy does not replace theirs.

Feed and forage. State who supplies what for each livery type, that the yard feeds only what the owner has approved in writing, that changes go through a written route, and that special diets or medication are extras at stated prices. The practical side, a sheet, a change log and a feed room board, is covered in this tutorial on building yard feed sheets with AI, and the agreement can refer to it.

Turnout. Give the normal hours, how groups are chosen and changed, and the yard's right to keep horses in when fields are unsafe or closed to protect the ground, and how owners will be told. Without that sentence, every wet week produces a complaint. A comparable weather-and-welfare balance appears in this tutorial on riding lesson cancellation policies.

Health and emergencies. Name the vet and farrier, set the vaccination and worming policy with records kept on file, and say the yard may call the vet in an emergency at the owner's cost. Say how the owner will be reached and what happens if they cannot be. One decision deserves a conversation before it is ever needed: what should happen if a vet advises that a horse must be put down to prevent suffering and the owner cannot be reached. Settle it with your vet and your solicitor so that staff never have to improvise. Add isolation steps for new arrivals and for infectious disease.

Rules and liability. Put riding hours, arena use, hat requirements, supervision of children, dogs, visitors, gates and parking in a rules schedule that the yard can update on written notice. For liability, state what each side is responsible for and let a solicitor decide how any limit is worded, because that is where overreaching templates create the most risk.

Sales, loans and visitors. If an owner sells or loans the horse, the agreement should require written notice, say who may handle and ride it, set out viewing arrangements, and decide whether a buyer or borrower signs their own agreement. A loan also raises the question of who counts as the owner for insurance and for emergency decisions. Visiting professionals such as dentists, physiotherapists and instructors should be arranged by the owner, and the yard may ask for proof of their own cover.

Where the three types differ most, clause by clause

Once the clauses exist, a recap table shows where to put your drafting effort. Each livery type has one clause that causes most of its trouble.

The last row is the useful one. In full livery the risk is the extra that nobody priced. In part livery it is the seam between the yard's days and the owner's. In DIY it is the owner who does not turn up. Spend your time on the clause that answers that risk for each type, and let the rest follow the facts sheet.

Twelve horses, one unpaid bill and an owner in hospital

An owner runs a yard with twelve horses: five on full livery at $620 a month, four on part at $430 and three on DIY at $260 (illustrative). Monthly income is 5 x $620 + 4 x $430 + 3 x $260 = $3,100 + $1,720 + $780 = $5,600. One full-livery owner falls two months behind. That is $1,240, or 22% of a month's income, sitting on one unpaid account.

Without a fees clause the yard has no defined first step, so the manager hesitates, then argues, then loses a third month. With the clause drafted above, the path is written down: a written reminder when the fee is a set number of days late, then the immediate-termination ground, then a removal date, with the solicitor's wording for what happens next. The numbers do not change; the speed and the certainty do.

Two more scenarios show how the schedules do their work. A part-livery owner travels for a week, and the evening feed is the owner's task in the schedule. The schedule offers cover at the extras price of $8 a feed, so seven evenings cost $56 and nobody needs to negotiate at the gate. In a wet fortnight the yard closes two fields. The turnout clause lets it do so, tells owners how it will announce the closure, and says DIY owners keep their horses in while the closure lasts, because the closure is the yard's decision, so there is nothing to argue about at the gate.

One more case: a DIY owner is in hospital for ten days. Without a cover clause the staff either do nothing and risk the horse's welfare, or do everything and send an invoice the owner disputes. With a daily cover price in the extras list, say $22 a day for full daily care (illustrative), the yard steps in, the cost is $220 over the ten days, and the agreement already says the owner reimburses it. The owner is billed what was agreed before the problem arose, which is the whole point of an extras list.

If you use livery management software for billing and notes, the same fees and extras lines should be entered there so invoices match the agreement; this tutorial on livery yard software, billing and notes explains where AI helps.

Stage 3: let the assistant hunt for gaps and contradictions

Once the clauses exist, change the assistant's role from author to sceptical reader. Paste the whole draft and use a prompt that forbids rewriting.

Here is a draft livery agreement with three schedules (full, part, DIY). Check it as a careful owner's adviser would. List:
1. Contradictions between the schedules and the main clauses (for example a task given to the Yard in one place and the Owner in another).
2. Terms used but not defined.
3. Numbers or periods that appear twice with different values.
4. Anything that depends on the words "reasonable", "regular" or "appropriate" with no measure.
5. Situations the draft does not cover (owner abroad, horse injured at night, fees unpaid, infectious disease, yard sold).
Quote clause numbers. Do not rewrite anything.

[paste the draft]

A run on a draft like this might report (illustrative) that clause 3.2 says the yard turns out part-livery horses by 8 a.m., while the part livery schedule makes morning turnout the owner's task; "emergency" is used in clauses 9 and 12 but never defined; notice is [4] weeks in clause 7.1 and [6] weeks in the DIY schedule; "regular turnout" in clause 6 has no measure; and nothing covers infectious disease or an owner who cannot be reached after midnight. Each finding is a real defect you can fix in minutes, and none of them requires the assistant to understand the law.

Two further checks are worth running. Ask the assistant to play an owner who disagrees with the turnout clause and to argue every ambiguity in the owner's favour; where its argument is persuasive, the clause is vague. And ask for a one-page plain-English summary for owners, using only what the draft says. Then test the summary on people: give it to two current owners, one DIY and one full, and ask what happens in four scenarios, such as the horse being lame at night, rain for a week, a late payment and a holiday. A wrong answer is a drafting problem, not an owner problem.

A scenario test for the owners might look like this. The middle column is what a good draft lets someone answer from the page alone.

Stage 4: what to hand your solicitor

Take the clean draft, the facts sheet, the gap list with your fixes, your insurance documents and the list of [TO DECIDE] items you have resolved. A solicitor who knows livery or equine work will spend less of your money on a prepared brief. Ask the assistant for questions you could take, and add your own; a typical list runs like this.

1. Is the exclusion of liability in clause [number] enforceable where I operate, and how should it be worded?
2. What may I lawfully do if fees remain unpaid or a horse is left after notice ends, and what must the agreement say?
3. How should notice be served, and does email count?
4. How should the arrangement be described, and what follows from that description?
5. Do the rules on unfair or consumer terms apply to owners who are private individuals, and if so, what must change?
6. What must the privacy notice say about owner and horse records, photographs and emergency contacts?
7. How should the emergency vet and end-of-life clause be worded?

The same habit, drafting with AI and then having a professional check specific points, applies in other trades. This tutorial on AI-drafted personal trainer contracts shows what a solicitor looks for in a service contract, and this one on a storage unit rental agreement covers the renting of space, which has parallels with stabling.

Three drafting errors AI makes with livery terms

Here is a composite of how drafting goes wrong, built from the habits above.

The blanket exclusion. A first-draft liability clause says the yard is not liable for anything that happens to the horse. An owner's solicitor reads it, advises the owner not to sign, and the negotiation costs more than careful drafting would have. Leave the wording to your solicitor and keep the AI's version out of circulation.

The schedule that contradicts the clause. The part-livery schedule says the owner brings horses in; clause 6 says the yard does. Both are signed. In the first dispute, each side points to a different page. The gap check in stage 3 finds this kind of defect cheaply, and it is the main reason to prefer a main body plus schedules over three separate documents.

The invented standard. Asked for "standard" notice and fee terms, an assistant states a period and a late-payment consequence with complete confidence. Nothing in its answer says where the number came from. The fix is the facts sheet and rule 2 in the prompt: if you have not decided it, it stays in brackets.

Livery agreement questions from yard owners

Do I need a separate agreement for each livery type?

One agreement with a schedule for each type is usual and easier to keep consistent. The main body holds the terms every owner shares, such as payment, notice, insurance, health and yard rules. Each schedule then lists who does which task and what the fee covers. That structure also makes contradictions easier to spot when you check the draft.

Can a free template be enough?

A template is a reasonable start, but a blank one cannot tell you who gives the Sunday evening feed or what happens when a DIY owner is ill. Fill the gaps from your own routines first, then have a solicitor review the result. Terms that suit one yard or place may not hold up in another.

Who pays when the vet is called?

Normally the owner, and the agreement should say so, together with the yard's authority to call the vet in an emergency, how the owner will be reached and what happens if they cannot be. Any limit on costs the yard may agree without the owner's approval is a decision for you, the owner and your solicitor, not for an AI draft.

How often should the agreement be reviewed?

At least once a year, and whenever you change fees, rules, facilities or insurer. The agreement itself should say how changes are made and how much written notice owners get. Re-check the schedules in particular, because routines drift: tasks quietly move between yard and owner and the paper stops matching practice.

Further reads

• Can AI Draft a Barber Chair Rental Agreement? What to Check — Another space-rental agreement, drafted with AI and checked
• Can AI Write a Gym Waiver Template? What a Solicitor Must Check — What a solicitor must check in an AI-drafted waiver
• Can AI Draft a Martial Arts School Waiver for Children? — Drafting terms where children are involved
• Riding School Software: Lesson Booking, Rider Notes and AI Reminders — Software for lessons, bookings and rider notes
• Dog Boarding Booking Software: Compare Options and Add AI Replies — Booking software for a boarding business, with AI replies
• Dog Boarding Intake Form: Vaccines, Feeding and Medication Fields — Feeding and medication fields for another boarding business
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: public reference descriptions of full, part, DIY and grass livery; equine insurer guidance on livery yard cover (public liability, care, custody and control, employers' liability).