How Good Is Your Stallion Service Contract?
As a stallion owner, the most important thing you can do for your business is to manage mare owners’ expectations with a clear and comprehensive breeding contract. Every spring, Equine Legal Solutions receives numerous inquiries from anxious mare owners who want to know what their rights are under a stallion service contract. Inquiries typically involve fees, rebreeding rights and live foal guarantees. Often, the mare owner is concerned because they have spent what they consider to be a large sum of money and their mare is not pregnant.
When ELS reviews the breeding contract in question, we usually find that the contract does not adequately address the mare owner’s area of concern. In particular, breeding contracts are not always clear about what fees are refundable and what fees are not, what procedures must be followed to order shipped semen and what happens if the stallion or mare is sold before the contract is complete. What happens if the stallion owner receives a bunch of requests for shipped semen all on the same day and cannot honor them all? These types of ambiguities can lead to large disagreements between stallion owners and mare owners, the kind of disagreements that result in bad reputations and complaints to breed associations. As a breeder, the last thing you want is an industry rumor that your stallion is not producing viable semen or that you won’t honor your live foal guarantee.
Live foal guarantees should be much more detailed than “Stallion owner guarantees that mare owner will have a foal that stands and nurses” (a real-life example from a contract that ELS reviewed). For example, most stallion service contracts do not specify when the breeding season ends AND how many breeding seasons the mare owner can keep trying to breed the mare. Savvy breeders will have a contract that requires the mare owner to have a veterinarian check the mare’s fertility before breeding and check her fertility again if she does not become pregnant within a certain number of breedings. In addition, breeding contracts should be very specific about what pregnancy checks are required – when they must take place, who must perform them and what type of documentation must be submitted to the breeder.
Live foal guarantees should also attempt to cover the spirit of what a “live foal” means and not just rely the old standby of “stands and nurses,” which is a somewhat outdated concept. A foal that stands and nurses is not necessarily a viable foal. For example, a foal with lethal white syndrome may stand and nurse, but it will die a few hours later. In contrast, a foal that does not stand and nurse may indeed be quite viable. For example, a foal whose dam will not accept her and is bottle-fed by people may grow into quite a large, healthy filly.
In the modern era of interstate and even international breedings via artificial insemination, your breeding contract should specify what state’s law will apply and where the parties must bring a claim. Otherwise, a mare owner in a distant state (or even a distant country!) could sue you in their home jurisdiction and even if you are able to remove the suit to your own home jurisdiction, it would likely be quite expensive to do so.
To help provide stallion owners with a cost-effective but high-quality breeding contract, Equine Legal Solutions now offers downloadable shipped semen and on-site breeding contracts.
When ELS reviews the breeding contract in question, we usually find that the contract does not adequately address the mare owner’s area of concern. In particular, breeding contracts are not always clear about what fees are refundable and what fees are not, what procedures must be followed to order shipped semen and what happens if the stallion or mare is sold before the contract is complete. What happens if the stallion owner receives a bunch of requests for shipped semen all on the same day and cannot honor them all? These types of ambiguities can lead to large disagreements between stallion owners and mare owners, the kind of disagreements that result in bad reputations and complaints to breed associations. As a breeder, the last thing you want is an industry rumor that your stallion is not producing viable semen or that you won’t honor your live foal guarantee.
Live foal guarantees should be much more detailed than “Stallion owner guarantees that mare owner will have a foal that stands and nurses” (a real-life example from a contract that ELS reviewed). For example, most stallion service contracts do not specify when the breeding season ends AND how many breeding seasons the mare owner can keep trying to breed the mare. Savvy breeders will have a contract that requires the mare owner to have a veterinarian check the mare’s fertility before breeding and check her fertility again if she does not become pregnant within a certain number of breedings. In addition, breeding contracts should be very specific about what pregnancy checks are required – when they must take place, who must perform them and what type of documentation must be submitted to the breeder.
Live foal guarantees should also attempt to cover the spirit of what a “live foal” means and not just rely the old standby of “stands and nurses,” which is a somewhat outdated concept. A foal that stands and nurses is not necessarily a viable foal. For example, a foal with lethal white syndrome may stand and nurse, but it will die a few hours later. In contrast, a foal that does not stand and nurse may indeed be quite viable. For example, a foal whose dam will not accept her and is bottle-fed by people may grow into quite a large, healthy filly.
In the modern era of interstate and even international breedings via artificial insemination, your breeding contract should specify what state’s law will apply and where the parties must bring a claim. Otherwise, a mare owner in a distant state (or even a distant country!) could sue you in their home jurisdiction and even if you are able to remove the suit to your own home jurisdiction, it would likely be quite expensive to do so.
To help provide stallion owners with a cost-effective but high-quality breeding contract, Equine Legal Solutions now offers downloadable shipped semen and on-site breeding contracts.