Lyndsey Dillon: Buying & selling horses - a survival guide

Lyndsey Dillon, an equestrian lawyer based in Ireland with practicing certificates across multiple countries, shares her expertise on protecting all parties in horse transactions with special attention to riders' often overlooked interests.

If you buy and sell horses - even to a neighbor down the road - you don't want to miss this episode.

Key Themes and Takeaways

🧑‍⚖️ 0:07 – Riders Deserve Commission

• Riders who produce and compete horses should receive a commission (~10%) upon sale.
• If an owner resists putting that in writing, it’s a red flag they never intended to honor it.

🎙️ 0:37 – Overview of Episode

• Covers: (1) Owner–Rider relationships, (2) Legal process of horse sales, (3) The role and risks of agents.

📍 2:05 – Lyndsey’s Background

• Equine-focused lawyer, licensed in Ireland, England & Wales.
• Primarily works remotely, attends select horse shows and consultations in person.

📘 5:18 – What Equine Lawyers Actually Do

• Services include: liability waivers, NDAs (less powerful in Europe), bill of sale contracts, staff employment contracts, syndicate structures.
• Her niche: Advocating for riders, who are often legally unrepresented yet central to the horse’s value.

🏇 11:27 – Rider Contracts and Commission Agreements

• Lyndsey drafts agreements protecting riders’ rights to a future commission if a horse they’ve developed is sold—especially if sold shortly after being pulled from their program.

📚 13:09 – Equine Law is a Patchwork of Other Legal Fields

• It blends litigation, contract law, tort law, employment law, and commercial law.
• No formal “equine law” discipline in law school—must be self-taught through experience.

💸 15:28 – Riders Are Often Exploited Financially

• Without contracts, riders lose rights to commissions or credit for increasing a horse’s value.
• Protecting these interests early avoids major disputes later.

📈 17:45 – Commission Standards

• 10% is typical for riders, but can vary based on seniority, results, and negotiating power.
• Riders are advised to ask early—most owners won’t volunteer it.

⚖️ 20:54 – Riders Often Don’t Feel Empowered to Ask

• Many fear losing access to owners if they seem “difficult.”
• Especially true for less wealthy riders who rely on owners for top horses.

🏢 23:53 – Most Riders Are Running Complex Businesses

• Many riders manage staff, facilities, schedules, clients—yet rarely receive the legal protections afforded to owners and buyers.

📉 28:40 – Shortage of Knowledgeable Equine Lawyers

• There’s demand, but quality matters. Lawyers need sport-specific insight to draft enforcea

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Chapters

• 0:00 Protecting Riders' Commission Rights
• 5:55 Introduction to Lindsay Dillon
• 18:12 Advocating for Riders in Equestrian Law
• 30:14 Contracts and Commissions Explained
• 43:41 Horse Sale Logistics and Veterinary Reports
• 1:00:12 Liability, Jurisdiction and Transport Issues
• 1:13:49 The Role of Agents in Horse Transactions

Transcript

Lyndsey: 0:07

and I always feel that if you work the horse, you can jump the horse, you can produce it and then, when it's sold, you will get 10% to the sale price. And if they're not willing to reduce those terms to writing, my gut feeling always tells me they were never going to honor what they had said to you.

Sam: 0:37

Hey everyone, Welcome back to another episode of the Pegasus Podcast. In this episode we're talking to Lindsay Dillon, who was an equestrian lawyer based out of Ireland, mainly serving continental Europe. That said, since many Americans do import horses from Europe, she's been involved in many sales to American buyers as well. In this episode we cover three main areas. Firstly, we talk in detail about the relationship between riders and owners and how that business relationship should function. Then we go into typically how a horse sale should work, the paperwork involved and what you could do to protect yourself if you are buying or selling a horse. And three, we then talk about the role that agents play in this economy. How do agents complicate horse sales, how can they create legal jeopardy for you as a buyer or a sell-up, but also how important they can be to the success of the transaction and how they play a crucial role in the equestrian economy.

Sam: 1:33

All right, guys, I hope you enjoy this show. It's full of a lot of interesting stuff. I really enjoyed it. You can probably hear me learning as we go through the podcast, because I have to admit there are a lot of things in this that I didn't know. That I'm glad I do now. All right, enjoy the show. Let's get into it. Okay, Lindsay, thank you very much for joining me today. For the audience members who don't know who you are, do you just want to give them a quick summary of who you are and what you do?

Lyndsey: 2:05

Hi, sam, I'm so glad to be with you. My name is Lindsay. I'm a lawyer with a niche area in equestrian law, so I'm kind of here to try and help you deal with everything equestrian related.

Sam: 2:11

Right, and you're based out of Ireland, correct?

Lyndsey: 2:12

Yes, I'm based out of Ireland in Europe. I have a practicing cert in Ireland, england and Wales. Scotland didn't want me. No, that's a joke. I just didn't apply for a job in Scotland or a practicing cert in Scotland. But yeah, so I'm licensed to practice in three jurisdictions. Obviously, when Brexit came, I had to get the practicing cert for England and Wales because they were no longer in the European Union, and then, by extension, through the rest of Europe.

Sam: 2:37

So does that mean that you essentially spend your time traveling around Europe, you know, supporting different clients in all aspects of equestrian law, or is there like kind of like one niche within equestrian law that you really focus on?

Lyndsey: 2:49

I really wish it was that glamorous and I could answer yes to that question, that yes, I'm in different parts of Europe every year. No, With Zoom, with all the technologies that have come out of late, it makes it an awful lot easier for me to base the majority of my work here in Ireland. Sometimes with clients you know they need, they need it fixed straight away, so, whatever the issue might be. So I need to be at a computer, I need to be in the office, I need to have my stuff around me to fix that problem, whatever that problem may be, and it's easier to work out of an office for that. So with like Zoom, they can call in on Zoom or Teams, we can have a consultation, we can go through and we can get stuff out via email very quickly. Be it for whatever reason, there are some.

Lyndsey: 3:29

I do have the privilege I'm going to use the word of going to a number of horse shows around Europe. I'm hoping to make it over to the States this year as well, but we'll see how that goes. I do vacation in Florida, but that's a vacation Not in Wellington, it's over on the west coast. So I kind of, when I do go on vacation. I tend to stay away from the horses, but especially like sorry, I went off track there talking about my vacation time. I really do think that it's better that you know that.

Lyndsey: 3:58

The clients know that I have a base, that I'm there in the office if they need me. But they do also know that if they need me offsite for a sale, a purchase, for whatever they may need, they just let me know and I'm able to go Court schedule pending, of course, but they have that opportunity with me to say look, we're showing a top horse next week. Is there any chance that you can come over here and draft the contract? If I can, I will. If I can't, what generally happens is that I have a rough draft of the contract sent to the client. They review it and then we can review via email. You know they'll text and say they want these amendments made. That amendment's made and then the original is sent over to the client and they print it off. So even though I'm not there, it's still very manageable.

Sam: 4:42

Sure. So if I put myself in the shoes of the, you know someone who doesn't operate in the upper echelons of million dollar horses and you know the glitz and glamour of the high profile show jumping trade, for example and I put myself in the shoes of a typical equestrian or a typical show manager of a medium to small level show, the extent to which we typically interact with equine lawyers is like hey, I need a liability waiver for my show. I need to. I want to buy and sell a horse. I need a bill of sale.

Lyndsey: 5:17

Yeah.

Sam: 5:18

That's kind of like the extent of what I think about when I think about equine lawyers. What is outside of that scope of work? What other jobs do equine lawyers do and what sort of tasks do you get hired for? And who are the different stakeholders that you kind of like represent, from like buyers to sellers, to horse agents, traders, show managers Like what's the breadth of the opportunity for someone who might you know, there might be a lawyer listening to this who grew up riding, went to law school, now works for a corporate law firm, hates their job and was like I would love to practice law in the equine space but I've never really fully understood the opportunity that exists there.

Lyndsey: 5:53

So that's a really good question, because that's essentially my story. So horses are my life, they're a family business, it's in our blood and it's something that basically I know, no different. I used to find it so difficult and I'll clarify on this find it so difficult not being in the yard. Sam, full disclosure. I love being in my office in September to February in Ireland because the weather is horrendous, but it's starting to get sunny and kind of from March to September every day I'm like I wish I was in the yard. Do you know now? Do I want to be mucking out stables? No, I like my cushy office job too.

Sam: 6:31

You like being able to go get a coffee and a pastry at 9am and come back because of that routine.

Lyndsey: 6:37

Yeah, and I'm not dirty and I still go to the shows. I have four horses myself and two are competing. It's show jumping would be the discipline I would be interested in and I still go to shows every weekend with my horses and with my family and I thoroughly enjoy it. But getting back to your question, I'm the kind of person that, unfortunately, you will only ever see me when you have a problem and I will do liability waivers for some non-disclosure agreements. Unlike the United States, non-disclosure agreements don't have the same impact here that they would have in the States, but we still draft them because it's still a nice signed piece of paperwork if we ever do need to rely on it in court. But it doesn't carry the same weight. It's getting there, but the non-disclosure doesn't carry the same weight at this moment. So what I kind of do is I will deal with sales contracts generally for the sellers. I actually don't act for agents and I can get into that later in the podcast as to why I don't. I just think I will either do buyers, I will do sellers, and the other people that I represent would be the riders themselves, because what I found is that there was always somebody. If somebody is selling a horse, they've got money to get a lawyer. If somebody is buying a horse, a high-end horse, they generally would have the money for a lawyer. I am not saying the riders don't have the money for lawyers they do, but they seem to be the forgotten party in this and they're, you know, the most.

Lyndsey: 7:59

One of the most important elements to make the sport work is the riders themselves, and I felt that the riders were, you know, underrepresented legally or that they didn't know that they could go to somebody if they needed help, you know, if they needed advice on something, because it always seemed to be like OK, we've got the national bodies, have their team of legal counsel, your buyer might have their own legal counsel, your owner might have their own, you know, their own lawyers, and the rider is kind of just left there on their own. Now, I was hoping to kind of change that, and so I would always be rider based first, you know, because they're, to me, they are the most important element in any equestrian discipline. Well, them and the horse, please I'm not excluding the horse here Out of every other human that's involved there they are the most important element, they're the ones that get the results from your horse Riders produce your horses, they make them the high-end investment that the owners want, that the buyers want to buy, that the sellers want to sell. None of this happens without the riders and without the rider's input. Yeah.

Sam: 10:01

So let's double click into that. So the okay. So, yes, the sellers you know, if they are someone who sell horses regularly, it's their business. You know they're going to have their admin pretty wired tight right. The buyers the buyers if you're buying expensive horses, yes, you know you have lawyers for every aspect of your life. It would make sense that you're going to have lawyers who help you with a large purchase such as this.

Sam: 10:26

As far as the riders go, if I put myself in their shoes, you've got two classifications of riders. You've got the riders who are very, very wealthy, and this is what they do with horse sports. They might have family counsel that helped them with this sort of thing. But then you've got the riders who are training on, who have got a training business, and that's basically how they afford the money to purchase their string of horses, and they have some horses that they're taking to the Olympics and some that are their sale horses and they're basically piecing it together. If I put myself in their shoes and money is tight, then absolutely you're like oh, I could spend $10,000 on a lawyer to get this contract done, or I could just trust that this horse is what they say it is etc right.

Sam: 11:05

So is that kind of the space that you play in? It's like, how do I help the riders? Not just gut it and take that instinctive like I'm just going to trust the seller and therefore like, and then have riders find themselves in a bad situation. Which is the horse? You know, the veterinary records maybe weren't what they said they were, or the horse came up lame or anything like that. Is that kind of the space that you're?

Lyndsey: 11:27

Yeah, it is. So I suppose, like with regard to if we'll just say you were purchasing a horse and there was a rider involved in the purchase, obviously with the buyer's permission, there would be a contract between the buyer, potential new owner and the rider to say that you know this rider is going to have exclusive ride on Equine A and if Equine A is sold after six months afterwards, that you know, if they've got an agreement for a commission for the rider to get after producing it, that that's the agreement that I would have there, so that the rider still you know, somebody can't come in and take the horse away from a rider After them putting in years of work into it take the horse away and then the rider's kind of left looking there. So if you take, for example, if you give a horse to a rider and it's I have to use show jumping terms, if that's okay, it makes it easier for me. And they're jumping one meter 20. And by the end of that, the horse is jumping, the equine is jumping one meter 50. The horse is jumping, the equine is jumping one meter fifty. Ok, that's a massive improvement on your investment, that's. You know, your investment has moved up quite substantially, both in monetary gain and experience gain, would not have gotten that without the rider. And it's only fair that I feel that if there is an agreement from the start, from the outset, with you know the owner, that the rider is to get a certain percentage of commission if the horse is sold, that the rider is taken care of, I believe it's standard industry practice and I believe it's the only fair way forward because ultimately, yes, you may own the horse, but the rider produced it. The rider is the person that you know made your horse what it is today, got it out there, got it seen at shows, you know, did all this. So with Riderwise, that's kind of where I started with. That was making sure that they were protected in that way.

Lyndsey: 13:09

I had to take baby steps with equine law or equestrian law, whatever term you wish to put on it because, unlike other areas of law, we all have constitutional law, we all have tort law, we all, you know, know contract law, we all know commercial contracts. There's actually no subject that you can learn equestrian law. So I've kind of had to, with my experience, put it together and I have kind of figured out that we've got litigation. Of course we've got commercial contracts, because essentially these are commercial deals. We've got the area of contract law and we've got the area of tort law and it's like a mixture of all of those together. And then of course, you put in employment law to do with any staff that may be any trainers, any group, any other staff that's working in your yard. You know that it's a very big area, it's a very broad area, but you just have to know kind of how to tailor it to your client.

Lyndsey: 14:02

So, as you said, I wish I charged my clients 10,000 euros. I do not Ditto we would do for argument's sake if a yard approached us and they said look, we need, we have five staff, we have to get contracts. We have liveries, you know, with the horse. They take care of the horses, that they're in, living with them and in training, and we need to get, you know, contracts. We do a package and that's it. You know, here it is, here are all your precedents, here you go, so they have them there forever and they pay for them. It's one off.

Lyndsey: 14:32

You know it's not, because it doesn't make sense to get a lawyer each time you get a new livery client, that each time you get a new owner that if you have all these precedents set up that are just basically fill in the blanks with all the details, it makes it so much easier, it makes your yard run better and you have the paperwork there. You have it in writing, you have your contract, you know, you have your what would have been a verbal agreement now reduced to writing, and it's there. And I always feel that if somebody says something to you and they say, oh yes, that's no problem, you can work the horse, you can jump the horse, you can produce it and then when it's sold, you will get 10% of the sale price. And if they're not willing to reduce those terms to writing, my gut feeling always tells me they were never going to honor what they had said to you, and that's standard across every business. They had said to you, and that's standard across every business.

Lyndsey: 15:28

It's just that I felt, up until lately and still going on, that riders were taken advantage of in that regard, that then an owner could come in and say, okay, now we have vastly improved our investment, let's take it away from Sam. For six months the horse would be actually maybe even sold. Well, we don't know. That's kind of conjecture. I don't mean to place a bad scenario on it, but let's, the horse would be actually maybe even sold. Well, we don't know, that's kind of conjecture. I don't mean to place a bad scenario on it. But let's take the horse away from Sam and in six months time it will be sold to Lindsay. And then Sam doesn't get his commission. So we put in a clause into the agreements to say like, okay, if you take the horse away from my client and it's sold within three months or six months of you taking it out of my horse, my client's care. Well, he's still entitled. He or she is still entitled to his standard industry practice commission, you know, for bringing it up. And that's how it actually started it then.

Sam: 16:17

Sorry, can I just interrupt you for a second, because you've just said a lot and I just want to go into it in a bit more detail. So call me absolutely naive. I was not aware that there was a practice that a rider was got, you know, a contractual commission for basically, you know, improving the quality of the asset being the horse. So is that something that you basically have like created as a practice, or did that exist prior to you creating as a practice? And two, is that something that is commonplace worldwide or is that just something that you're doing in europe? Because I've had lots of conversations with people about buying some horses and at no point has anyone ever said to me oh yeah, the riders are typically involved in the contract because, you know, they are the ones that take a 1x asset and they turn into a 3x asset and they put their intellectual property into the horse, which is their training, techniques and performance. It makes total sense from first principles, but I've never heard anyone say it, which leads me to believe it's not very common practice.

Lyndsey: 17:20

Well, I wish I could say that I was that intelligent to have come up with that, or have that much business acumen. But no, I did not come up with that. That's what it's. Not. Not every rider would have it, not every everyone would have it, but it is there.

Lyndsey: 17:35

And this is what I'm talking about is that riders need to be taken care of. You know that this needs to be said. You are improving the value of an asset. You know if you don't ask for it, you're not going to get.

Lyndsey: 17:45

The owner, or the owner of the equine could easily say no, that's not going to happen. You know we pay you a monthly, weekly livery, whatever the agreement is, and they'll say, no, that's your payment for it, you know, and that's fine, but you have to ask. You know, you have to kind of put it that if you're competing and you're winning classes, would this horse be winning classes with somebody else if it wasn't you? And if you're the one doing that, putting it out on a global stage, and you're the one that's improving the asset, well, you know, if the agreement is there, then you'll be entitled to it. Not everyone will agree to it. It's not an agreement that every client I have has with every horse that they have, but it is there and it's something all riders should ask for, be them in dressage, eventing. You know, if you're improving the quality of an asset, it should be only right that you be compensated for that.

Sam: 18:33

So, yes, if you're based off your experience, what have you observed the pattern to be? Have you observed the pattern to be that most owners are expecting to give the riders a commission and are very forthcoming about it and not offended at all if the rider requests it? Or have you noticed a more likely pattern, which is that a lot of owners will get away with not putting it in the contract if they can and it really does require the rider to speak up?

Lyndsey: 19:02

It requires the writer. It's an agreement between you and the writer and the owner. My understanding I'm sure there'll be people on here correct to me saying I'm wrong, but my feelings on it is that it's an agreement between the writer and the owner. If there's no agreement, well then there's no percentage to be paid. But generally most owners will say that, okay, well, if you exponentially improve my investment or my equine or it's sold and you bring me the buyer or the buyer comes on the back of your actions, like as in what you have done and won and competed with the horse, well then we would feel that it would only be fair. But this needs to be something that needs to be agreed at the start of the business relationship, not at the end when the horse is sold. It's the same where an owner can't just go in and change the terms at the end to say, well, you know what, now I actually don't want to pay you that. I know you brought me the buyer and I know you competed the horse at two, three, four, five star level and you know you did so much work with it and added, increased the value, and now I don't want to pay you that commission. Same as that. The rider can't turn around and just say at the end like, okay, I've done all this, now I want this amount of money. It needs to be an agreement and that's the thing about commercial contracts.

Lyndsey: 20:10

Took me a long time to understand commercial contracts because there's very, very little legislation about them. We have contract law, but a commercial contract can be whatever you want it to be, as long as it's an agreement and the parties are easily identified and it's an agreement signed and dated and it's for a commercial asset of some description, you can put whatever you want within reason, of course, you know into a commercial contract. Provided it's not illegal and everything is, you know, straightforward and upfront, you can put in whatever you want into the agreement. Some riders or clients of mine have these agreements, some of them don't. You know it's not my place to say, oh, you should ask for them or you shouldn't ask for it. That's between you and your owner or your syndicate that owns your equine, whatever the case may be.

Sam: 20:54

Right. So what percentage of people do you, what percentage of these relationships between owners and riders do you think, typically cut the rider in on it, versus what percentage don't? And do you find that? I mean because I assume you're typically hired by the owner right, or are you typically hired by the rider?

Lyndsey: 21:15

Usually it's the. I suppose I would work easier if we could describe it as buyer and seller. Usually it's the seller that will hire me. Sometimes it will be the buyer, not always, because the buyer is going to say to you, I would like a contract. You know, can you give me a copy of the contract? What's happening with the contract? So it's generally the seller that will hire me when it comes to it.

Lyndsey: 21:36

When it's to do with the contract or the agreements between the riders and the owners, it's generally me contacting the riders or the riders contacting me saying can you whip me up something very quickly? And it's always like one page, please, nothing dramatic. And I'm like, how do I get it down to one page? I'm like I will do my best. Like my contract started off at maybe 10 or 11 pages long and I realized no, I'm going to lose business if I continue on like this and we kind of have it now reduced to kind of between three to five pages. Obviously, if there are more kind of in-depth agreements or clauses that need to be included, well, obviously the page count doesn't really matter then. But you need to keep it simple and concise.

Lyndsey: 22:21

But, going back to what you had asked. I would usually come in with the rider, whip up something you know and say that look, this is our agreement. If the horse is sold, x amount is paid to me and it's just between them. You know, nobody else is involved. The owners can say no, you know, the rider can say no, you know there can be, there can be other deals done through that through, like prize money. There are other ways around this, but essentially this for me, equestrian law started out trying to represent riders' interests before anybody else. I felt that and I could be wrong and people may correct me I felt that they were the most underrepresented people in this sport. Now I'm sure they'll give out to me for saying that, but I do feel that they were.

Sam: 23:04

True in the sense of you know, and even I you know, as someone who hasn't competed or ridden at the top levels, like even I observe it in you know, our interactions in the equestrian industry on a daily basis, which is that you know, if you look at the buyer and the seller, right, typically what you have is you have someone who sells horses all the time, right, that's their main income and, as a result, they are sophisticated about the business of selling horses. And then you have buyers who might buy horses every now and then, or maybe they buy them all the time. But in order to be able to afford to buy horses at the prices we're talking about, you've got to have a business experience and business acumen. Or you've inherited money that allows you to hire the lawyers who have the business experience and business acumen, or you've inherited money that allows you to hire the lawyers who have the business experience and business acumen. So you've got two sophisticated parties, two experienced parties on both sides of the equation.

Sam: 23:53

The riders more often than not, unless they come from wealth, come up through the barns and never really went into corporate America or corporate life and they never really developed that business acumen. So it's very much like a professional athlete. You know how famously professional athletes blow their money because they haven't got good financial experience. They don't get ripped off all the time because they don't have a lot of business acumen when it comes to what sort of legal protection should be in place, et cetera, and so they're very vulnerable to being taken advantage of. And so you know, I know equestrians are athletes and you can say it's the same sort of thing.

Sam: 24:32

But I suppose that means that, like what that manifests, as is often, you'll get riders who are like oh, I've heard about this, but I feel uncomfortable bringing it up and I don't even really know what I'm talking about. So not only do I not want to bring it up, I don't want to sound stupid when I bring it up, and if I lose this job I'm kind of screwed. So I don't really want to like lose the job and lose the access to an owner right, which is most writers, the be all and end all. If you can find an owner who's going to basically sponsor your writing career, like that's the best thing in the world. So it's not surprising to hear that a lot of writers don't know that they should be asking for the risk. If they do know they should be asking for it, are scared to ask for it and they don't know what you know, legal frameworks or legal contracts they should be putting into place or how to go about it.

Lyndsey: 25:19

Yes, like I, in my experience, a lot of the writers would know of it and I think there's like a misconception about like the writers. Well, I can only speak about the writers that I've encountered. They're businessmen at the core. They're running businesses, they're running their yard, they're running staff. They have a full staff. They're running show schedules.

Lyndsey: 25:44

They're a one-man show yeah they, they really are on top of then having to, you know, compete these horses, work these horses. So I have so the utmost respect for the riders in that fashion, and that's a lot that people don't realize that the riders actually do. So they will run a yard. The staff could be two or three, might not, it could be a lot more. And that's difficult.

Lyndsey: 26:06

Like I run my own law firm and I'm going to say that I'm lucky that we only have like number of staff members I don't have it up in the 20s or 30s because I don't think I'd be able to. But if you look at it, that they're running a yard that may have 10 horses in there as well, 10 equines, three staff members, that's almost like being responsible for you know it's 13 alive beings, whatever way you want to put it, three humans, 10 horses, and you have to take care of them. You have to do feed orders. They run businesses very, very well on top of doing everything else. I know they get their grooms and the grooms are an integral part of the sport. I will always say that, and a good groom is like Willy Wonka's golden ticket, you know yeah, they're just, they're unbelievable.

Lyndsey: 26:49

So it's not that they're afraid to ask for it, but it's kind of like what you touched on, like, oh, if I do ask for this, am I going to lose the owner and is that going to then have an effect on my business that I'm running? Do you know that? My ability to pay staff, you know, if the owner takes the horses away and deliveries go? And this is why I wanted to make sure that the riders were represented fairly, so that they got what they were entitled to, what they deserve for the work that they put in, because they are the forgotten ones.

Lyndsey: 27:16

As you said, they come up through the barn, but I can tell you that you know they are so, so intelligent and their business and and if you notice, I don't know if you spend much time with riders they're, they're quiet generally and maybe after a few drinks they might be a bit rowdy, but generally they're like sponges. Do you know? They will soak up everything. They're always quiet. They're taking everything in. Do you know?

Lyndsey: 27:38

I wish I envy that level of intelligence, because I will say I don't have it. Do you know? I'm, yeah, I'm just I envy it and the drive that they have and I just felt that, you know, if I could help them in some way, great, I'd love. I'd love to be able to, and if something more comes from it, that was my kind of goal. Well, isn't that fantastic, do you know? So that's how I started with essentially the riders, which then moved on to okay. So somebody is now coming in through a rider that I may have, or a friend of a rider, a client that I may have rider, and they'd say, okay, do you know what we need? We're selling a horse. We need to get a contract. I'll get on to Lindsay Did something. She did an employment contract for me, for my grooms, and then it will come from there.

Sam: 28:24

So, generally speaking, then, would you say that there is nowhere near enough equine lawyers to serve the demand, or would you say there's a pretty good parity between equine lawyers and demand for equine legal support?

Lyndsey: 28:40

That's a loaded question.

Lyndsey: 28:41

I'm not going to lie? That is a very loaded question because and my answer is going to be somewhat loaded as well because I feel that there needs to be more, but there needs to be more equine lawyers that are familiar with the business. You know, I'm not going to try and go into an area of, we'll just say, endurance out in Saudi Arabia or Bahrain. I'm not going to try and do a contract for sale of an Arab horse that's competing in that, because I don't know the industry. Okay, not saying that I won't know it in time I mean geographic jurisdictions aside.

Sam: 29:15

Is there that much difference? Is there that much discipline-specific knowledge that you need to put into a contract in order for the contract to be watertight, like I would have thought you could traverse across disciplines relatively freely?

Lyndsey: 29:31

You can. But if it's the reason why I use the example of like endurance or one of those disciplines, is that I have no knowledge of endurance. So if you ask me, can you put in something about this rule to do with that, I'd be like I don't know, can I? Whereas if it's more of the streamlined ones what I would say streamlined like show jumping, eventing, dressage you know any of those I would be confident in doing a contract and I'm a firm believer of stick to what you know and do it well, instead of trying to do everything and then it only takes one contract for you to get it so bad, so wrong, and then there's years of reputation that you've built up gone. So like I feel that you there are.

Lyndsey: 30:17

There is a need for equine lawyers, but they need to be aware of the industry. They need to know the areas they're going into. You can't be a jack of all trades. You can't just be straightforward. You know, like I won't do racing. I know there's not much racing, I know we're not here to talk about racing, but I won't do any sort of contracts or any sort of equestrian law to do with Irish racing because I don't know the area well enough to do it. Yes, I like to watch it on the TV and yes, it's equestrian and there's an equine involved, but that doesn't necessarily mean I know what I'm talking about when it comes to racing. So that's why I'm saying that there is a need for them, but they need to be good at what they do.

Sam: 31:02

Yeah, in order to be good at it, you need to be good at what they do. Yeah, there's a. In order to be good at it, you need to really understand the sport and the incentives and the tricks and the shysty stuff so that you can really think through all the first, second, third order risks associated with the deal so that you can write the contract to account for them. And I mean it's something that you know. I came to the equestrian industry about five years ago and you know I did not grow up in it, and when I speak to friends of mine or business associates that aren't in the equestrian space, like I say to them all the time, I'm like it's so complex. I've been like I'm not a dumb person. I've been actively studying it for five years, day in, day out, 365 days a year. I have a podcast. I talk to the smartest people in the industry. I spend all day, every day, on the phone with customers asking them questions and just when I think I've got it all figured out, I learn something new every day. That completely upends what I thought was the case. I'm just learning right now.

Sam: 32:01

I did not know that riders were getting cut in on the sale of horses, which makes total sense. It's what it should be. It's an obvious thing, but I've spoken to many people who talk about horse sales and they've never raised that with me once. So, as a result, like in order to be an equine lawyer, as you said, if you are someone who is a lawyer and you're like oh, equ question's a niche I could get into, there's less competition, I could really nail it In order to be good. There is something about coming up through the industry that allows you to spot the trap doors that you can then be a good lawyer for your customer.

Lyndsey: 32:35

You kind of need to know the industry. It obviously helps that I grew up in it. Now it's not like our parents had us running the business. They most certainly did not. You know we had a fantastic childhood, I can say, thankfully, and they've been so good to us and the doors that this life has opened to all of us you know I have two siblings to all of us has been amazing and you know the parents have to be thanked for that. But I just very quickly just want to come back about the cutting the riders in, that's, if it, that's something that you know and, as I said, with any commercial contract, as long as it's agreed, it can be put in. But you would be silly not to ask for it. You're not going to get a massive jump. You know a massive cut from it, but you should get your fair share.

Sam: 33:22

What's? When you say massive, I mean you mentioned-.

Lyndsey: 33:24

You're not going to get 50% of the sales.

Sam: 33:26

Yeah, you threw the number 10% out earlier. Is that industry standard 10%? Is that industry standard 10%? Yeah, If I'm a rider listening to this and I'm like I've never done that, I want to do that, but I don't want to go up and sound stupid by asking for too much. Yeah, what is the spread that you've seen of numbers up?

Lyndsey: 33:44

Well, I always say that whatever you ask for first, the person is going to knock it down. So you know, if you want 10%, maybe ask for 13,. You know and say, ok, I'll come to 10 or I'll come to 7. You know, if you're just starting out, it really all depends on you know where you are professionally. If you're starting out and you've only been competing for a year, well then you know everything is relative and it all depends on you know what results that you would produce with your equine, be it in eventing dressage, show jumping, that you would produce with your equine, be it in eventing dressage, show jumping, what you have come, what you have produced, is what I would be saying that you need to. Then you know address with your owner to say like, well, look, I have done this in the past. I, these are my results. Do you know? This is what I've proven and that in the event that the horse is sold on the back of my results, I would like X amount. You know.

Lyndsey: 34:30

But you also have to remember that you know the owners are also an integral part to this business for any of the disciplines, because they're the ones that allow, you know, the riders. They come in with big investments. You know they subsidize it, they subsidize it and they're the ones that come in. And you know owners are so important to this sport and so you also don't want to take advantage of your owners. So you know it has to be fair, it has to be, you know, I won't say calculated, that's the wrong word, but you have to calculate it correctly, based on the horse's worth and what you bring to the horse. Do you know, like, if you go out and we'll just say you have the horse for a year and you compete the horse every weekend and you have, you know, constant bad results, you know, and the horse is sold, well, then it might be difficult to ask for, you know, can I have a commission based on that and the horse is sold at a loss to what was got?

Lyndsey: 35:22

You know you can't. You know you have to have some sort of business acumen about you and kind of say, okay, look, this horse was sold for a lot more than what he was purchased. It was based on my results and I feel that I should get this. And if that's agreed at the start everybody's aware of this there's no surprises. The owner is entitled to say no, sam, you're not entitled, I'm not going to do that. You go. Okay, that's cool. You know you don't ask, you're not going to get it.

Sam: 35:45

All right, okay, so let's pivot this conversation then to when things go wrong. Things go bad. But also, I mentioned a couple of times that I've spoken to a lot of people who've involved in horse sales and this has never come up. Okay, so the thing I'm struggling to comprehend in this conversation is you're saying that all these customers that you are supporting, you've got a seller who's hiring you to put together the contract for the sale of the horse and that paperwork is as mature as having a bill of sale for the horse, and then there's a second contract between the rider and the owner about who gets what out of the commission. Blah, blah, blah. That's the reality that you live in.

Sam: 36:30

The narrative that I hear often in the States is it's amazing how often there's no paperwork when it comes to horse sales, and the whole industry is in many ways set up for there to be no paperwork, because that gray area creates the opportunity for trainers and agents to take insane commissions on a horse sale.

Sam: 36:54

So they'll tell the seller they sold it for and they'll tell the buyer it's $200,000, and then the seller's agent and the buyer's agent will split $100,000 secret commission $50,000 a piece, and that no paperwork creates the gray area they need to be able to achieve that. And if you're a parent of a kid who just got into horses and you trust the trainer because you've got no one else to trust about how to get a horse from Europe especially if an American importing a horse you just assume that the trainer knows what they're doing and that's business as usual. So what have you seen? Can you help me understand how your supporting clients who have all this legal paperwork that's all perfectly laid out and executed? And then I've got this reality? Everyone told me they're like no, the grand majority of horses have no paperwork. And there's this really shysty gray area going on. How do those two realities coexist?

Lyndsey: 37:46

I actually can't answer the question as to how they coexist, but they do exist and they coexist together. I am fully in agreement. Coexist, but they do exist and they coexist together. I am fully in agreement. So where what always confused me, where I got it from was that one area, one department in my law firm is to do with property In Ireland in Europe we call it conveyancing, which is basically buying and selling property, and you have the most extensive 68-page contract for buying a property, be it for 10,000 euros or a million, and like it's a property be it for €10,000 or €1,000,000.

Lyndsey: 38:14

And like it's a big contract and it goes through all this kind of stuff and it used to baffle me that I thought this is not done for horses and they're sold for they can go for €10,000, they can go for €1,000,000, €2,000,000, €3,000,000, €4,000,000, €5,000,000. And there's no paperwork. I would agree 100% with you on that. There is a gradual move towards it, a slow and gradual move. My clients I'm very lucky, have made that move. They're making the move. That's why I was saying that you can give clients precedence. You can give them precedent documents that they can use. They can fill in like a bill of sale. For me, it's the utmost to protect the seller.

Sam: 38:53

To protect the seller, okay, um, because that protect the seller yes I would have thought it would be to protect the buyer well, it depends, I suppose, on who hires me.

Lyndsey: 39:01

So if the seller hires me, the contract is to protect the seller, and the reason being for that is that, provided the seller and the buyer are clearly identified and the seller actually has the right to sell the horse, meaning that they own the horse or they're selling it on behalf of somebody with permission okay, you. Then I actually brought one out so that I got most of my terms in, so I wasn't leaving anything out the seller then will agree with the buyer's certain terms that they're going to transfer full ownership of the equine to Sam for €10,000, okay, and that the seller then warrants, to the best of their knowledge, that there is nothing that they know that there's wrong with the horse. There's no defects to their knowledge, save whatever came up on the veterinary report. And then we also put in a term and this is so important for buyers. So I'm in this, I'm going to be flipping between the two, because they do kind of, as you say, coexist. They run beside each other, parallel the seller I would be adamant to them if a buyer comes in and says, do you know what?

Lyndsey: 39:59

We don't need a veterinary report. I'd be like, okay, well, we're going to put that in the contract, or you're going to sign it and say do you know what? I don you get that veterinary report because you've got nothing else to stand on if something goes wrong with it. You don't have x-ray vision, you are not a vet. Even if you are a vet, still get somebody. If we flip back to the seller, still on the veterinary report, I would be saying to the seller do not advise them what vet to go to. I'd give them three, five different vets, preferably one that has not treated the equine in the past, and let them pick what vet they want to carry out the pre-contract, the pre-purchased veterinary report, and then let that veterinary report form part of the contract and say that, yeah, veterinary report from Sam looks good, I'm going to go ahead and buy it. And then you go ahead and you buy the horse, as long as the money is laid out there on the contract for what the horse has been sold. And, by the way, this is buyer to seller. Of course there's going to be an agent in between and I'll give my thoughts on that in a second. So this is the contract between the buyer, the seller and the buyer.

Lyndsey: 41:06

What I would then always, always put in and this is quite important, especially in Europe, in the United States as well, but if I get a little bit more technical with the state is that you need it to have encompassing state law, not just the federal law of the United States of America. I would nearly even bring it down to you know, your counties, like Pinellas County in the state of Florida, the law that applies here that when you put in that jurisdiction, that's the jurisdiction that will have precedence for this contract to be heard. So, as the seller, you want precedence as to where your contract is going to be heard, because if you sell it to somebody in Connecticut and the horse is over there, suddenly you have to get lawyers over in Connecticut to fight this case if they're going to bring it in court over there. But if you've got a contract that says the exclusive jurisdiction to do with anything to do with this contract is the Republic of Ireland, well then the proceedings need to be brought in Ireland or wherever the seller is from. You know Spain, france, wherever, you know Poland, germany, wherever they are. They have to. The seller needs to have exclusive jurisdiction, otherwise they lose control. Okay, and the buyer needs to be aware of that, that if there is a problem, do you know that I will have to bring them here in Ireland. I like to put in a clause that says do you know? Firstly, we're going to try and mediate this out, we're going to see if we can come to some amicable agreement, and I would say that you know that any litigation or any disputes or issues with it needs to be brought to our attention within two months. I would cut it down to that because, even with two months, you purchase a horse.

Lyndsey: 42:39

Horses are I will be using comparing them to cars but they're not cars. They're living, breathing investments. They can, you know, they can have an aneurysm, they can have a heart attack, they can break a leg. You can put it out in the grass and it can be cantering around God forbid and it break a leg. You can put it out in the grass and it can be cantering around God forbid and it breaks a leg and there's your investment gone. So you can't then turn around to the seller saying, okay, I took it down off the transport truck, I left it out in the field and now it's broke its leg here, take it back. Thank you very much. Do you know I want my money back.

Lyndsey: 43:05

No, it doesn't, long as there's nothing wrong with the equine, that you know that there's nothing that I haven't told you that's wrong with it.

Lyndsey: 43:16

Well then we would be arguing that you can't return it to us and a lot of people will come back, and I've had a few cases like this that I've actually kind of did a bit of a turn into professional negligence because it was actually the veterinary report that was incorrect. So the seller, once there's a veterinary report in there, you now have I won't say an agent, you have a third party now in the middle that's assuming responsibility for the health of this horse, saying that yes, all the x-rays are clear, it's not lame, it's got good flexion, it's moving well on both sides. And then if there's something incorrect in that your issue is with your vet as opposed to the seller, the seller then will have a clause in there to say that look, we didn't know, you know, we didn't know it had arthritis. That was up to your vet to find and we're really sorry that your vet didn't find it, but you know, that's what it is.

Sam: 44:05

Yeah, so that's I assume. That's why then that you're like don't say who the veterinarian should be? Yeah, because then you can't no one can claim that you've paid off a vet to give a false report because they chose their vet.

Lyndsey: 44:20

Yeah. So we would always say I would always say let them pick the vet themselves, you know, Let them decide who they want to come. I always recommend, you know, five-star vetting. You know as many x-rays, blood, whatever, whatever you need to do. Like the thing here is that if you're honest and transparent, there should be no issue, do you know? Yeah, and if you just say, look open to any test, like you would a car open to any test, work away, um should be all okay. So that's why then I will put in another clause at the end and I feel it's the most important clause in an agreement. It's called an entire agreement clause. It basically says that look, look, you know what an entire agreement clause is. It's whatever's contained in this document is what we agreed.

Lyndsey: 45:03

So I may have told you outside that I jumped 150 with that horse, but it's not in the agreement. You know you can't rely on it later if the horse doesn't jump one metre fifty for you. So that's that's the most important thing, and I would say to every seller that you need to have it in because you know you can say something in. You know if you're in the process of a sale, you know you want to get the sale done, but provided what you say doesn't induce the buyer into the contract to buy the horse. If it does induce a buyer in and a buyer feels like, okay, I'm buying this horse because she said this, then the buyer has to be smart enough to say I need this in the contract. You told me that this was the case with this horse. You told me it was going to win a gold medal at the Olympics and the only reason I'm buying it is because you told me that. Well, if that's the case, that clause needs to go into the contract now.

Sam: 45:50

Right, I wouldn't let it. We've to go into the contract now, right, I wouldn't let it. Okay, so let me just ask we've got to come back and talk about when agents and stuff and get involved middlemen, we'll come back to that. Before we do that, let's just focus on let's just assume that we're talking about two parties the buyers and the sellers. So if we take the idea right, so here in the States, you know, a lot of people buy and import European horses. A lot of people buy and import european horses. Um two, I'm gonna make two comments about that and then you can generally answer it. So comment one is and tell me where my education on this is wrong.

Sam: 46:23

But when we've looked into in the past in europe, buses are basically classified as consumer goods. As a result, they typically fall under the consumer Protection Act right, which means that for all intents and purposes, they're classified as the same as if you bought a fridge or a microwave, because they're a consumer good and in the EU, under European law, if a consumer good has a factory default, then within a year you can return the product for a full refund without questions. Then within a year, you can return the product for a full refund without questions. That pre-sales, you know. For something that's made at a factory line, like a microwave, that's great, but for a horse, as you said, you get the horse, it goes out in the field, it injures itself and then a week after it arrived it's limping and the buyer assumes that there was something undisclosed. It wasn't the fact that it injured itself last night in the paddock, right.

Sam: 47:14

So now you've got this inherent risk by the seller being like well, if I sell it to someone inside the eu, I'm exposing myself to this refined reality. That's a massive risk. So therefore, I'm going to sell it to america where, like I haven't got that risks because consumer protection laws are a consume uh, are in the it's not applying to America, I can sell it overseas. I don't have that risk, which means that would create an incentive structure where a European would be like if I have any doubts about this horse, I should probably sell it overseas because I've got less risk of what might happen if there is an issue with the horse. So that's like point one that I would like you to comment on and tell me if that understanding of that law and those incentives are right or wrong.

Sam: 47:56

Point two I have is to that point about the refund, if you have a English seller or an Irish seller and they're selling it to someone in Wellington and they're putting in the contract that the jurisdiction is Ireland and the jurisdiction is not Wellington. Now we're talking about law overseas and international law, and international law is famously unenforceable. So how does I guess, as the buyer, if you were talking, in both these circumstances, the buyer's American and they're being sole or horse by European how do those two facets come into effect for the American buyer? As far as the risk, as far as their recourse if something goes wrong, as far as like, should they be thinking about buying an American horse because they've got a clearer legal recourse and it's a more understandable, you know, legal playing field to negotiate with? Like, what does it mean if I'm an American buyer listening to this podcast?

Lyndsey: 48:56

Okay, so I'm going to address your first question first, and I think the piece of legislation you're referring to is called the Consumer Rights Act of 2015 here in Europe. So that actually applies to a trader or a dealer as such when it comes to it. So if you're doing this in the course of your business and you're declaring your tax returns that you're a dealer, this piece of legislation will apply to you. It will not apply if you're a private seller, somewhat of like if you were buying a car as a caveat impertoire buyer beware. If you're buying a car and you're a private seller, you're privately selling your horse. But if you're in the course of your business, trade or profession that you're classed as a horse dealer or trader. Trader is the correct term. Dealer is just the vernacular that unfortunately, I'm used to saying when it's not politically, it's not correct, legally correct to say it. It's if you're, they're a horse trader If that.

Sam: 49:58

So what percentage of people who sell horses professionally would report on their tax returns if they're a horse trader?

Lyndsey: 50:05

Oh, my God, sam, I can't answer that question, my God.

Sam: 50:08

But like are we talking? Like are we talking like my gut instinct when you say that is the majority of sport, horse sales, private sales, and then horse traders are more likely going to be like equestrian auction houses in the racing world.

Lyndsey: 50:22

Yeah, or you know, Is that like a?

Sam: 50:24

fair assumption, or would you say that?

Lyndsey: 50:27

There are well-known, you know, horse traders and dealers that are 100% above board, the majority of them out there, the ones that are at the higher end, you know. They're all completely legitimate, you know, and they would be declaring themselves as horse traders, you know, because that would be their profession. It would be, it would be common knowledge. But if you're selling a horse, if I'm selling my horse to you, you know, even though I grew up in the industry, that's not my profession. I'm a lawyer. Do you know? I'm selling my horse to you.

Sam: 50:54

Yeah, yeah, totally Okay. So for those, for those people who are professional horse traders in the sport horse world and they're all above board have you had much of a discussion with them about how this commercial regulation affects their business? Do you have any? Have you had any experience or conversations about what incentives that creates for them and the risks of selling inside Europe versus selling overseas or anything like?

Lyndsey: 51:16

that I have to answer that question honestly and say I have not. Not, thankfully, um, that it hasn't been. You know, it hasn't come across my desk. My, what comes across mine are generally the private sales that have gone a little bit awry and they need, they need fixing on one side or the other. Generally, with that, I suppose to to address your point, and this would just be my opinion.

Lyndsey: 51:38

Do you know, um, the American clientele are a huge, you know, know, a huge clientele for anyone in Europe, china, anywhere in the world. Do you know you wouldn't kind of isolate one area of clients just because you want to sell one bad horse. Do you know people in the industry don't think like that. It's a lot more rewarding if you sell a horse to an American client and next thing you see that that client and she's competing at the Miami GCL or she is, you know, she's gone somewhere else and she's flourishing with the horse because your reputation is like I bought that horse from, she bought that horse from Sam. People are then calling you saying, sam, do you have anything like? You know the equine that Lindsay has? Do you know, do you have anything else there that might be similar to it? You know. So I don't think that people would be from Europe. Now, my opinion I can't speak for anybody here. I don't think it would operate that way that you know people are trying to take advantage of American clients just because they're in a different jurisdiction. That problem is very easily solved, you know.

Lyndsey: 52:37

You put in joint jurisdiction. You know, if it's to say that, you know, I'm not comfortable with it just being the Republic of Ireland, I would also like it to be, you know, the state of Florida, the state of Texas, you know wherever, wherever you're based yourself. Generally, the reason why it would be in the seller's grasp to be able to determine where the jurisdiction is is because a contract is deemed concluded where it's drafted. So if it's concluded in Ireland, that would be the law that would apply, that it's basically drafted and governed under Irish law. But you can, of course, always change that, you know. You can say that it's drafted and governed under Irish law in conjunction with Floridian state law, you know, so that it can bring it in. Now there will be obviously conflicting terms in there with the Florida law as opposed to the Irish law. But that's all I have to say on that. Quote Forrest Gump.

Sam: 53:34

So, if I can summarize that, because I do find this fascinating and the reason I got so interested in it was because during the pandemic, when the horse market like went crazy, you know there were people just buying a horse for a multi-thousand dollars off an Instagram reel without any inspection stuff, because the supply was so low that you had to be the first person to wire the cash, otherwise someone else did Right, and so that was when I got into it and started really looking into it.

Sam: 54:00

But so, to summarize it, I am right at a theoretical level, right that if I was a someone, a seller, selling a horse and I was to sell it inside the EU and I had doubts about the horse for whatever reason, there is an increased risk of selling it inside the EU if I am a professional horse trader than if I sold it to America. That is theoretically accurate. But because of the carrot is greater than the stick the idea, the incentive of well, I don't want to sell a bad horse to a customer and get a reputation and infringe on potential future sales, that incentive, in your experience, generally washes out any of the risk of a European seller trying to unload bad stock on what is considered, like some of the best buying market in the world being the American market.

Lyndsey: 54:54

Yeah, so you also have to take into consideration, like I said earlier, the horses are living beans, right? If you sell a horse, the sale is concluded and the contract is signed, the money is wired and you hire a transporter. Again, I would always say to a seller let them pick their own transporter transporting company. You don't get involved here, you no longer own the horse. Okay, yeah, I would always say to clients that look, it's going to be a minute out of your life.

Lyndsey: 55:22

Take a video of the horse walking from the stable to the transport truck, let it get on the transport truck, let it be loaded. You may never have to use that video, ever again, but you know what? Save it to the cloud, put it on your laptop, do whatever you want with it and put it away. Because what the buyer has to realize is that if the horse gets injured in transit, it's not the seller's fault. The buyer would have chosen the transport company, but they could get sick, they could die. So the horse could essentially come down off the transport truck when it arrives, which is if it goes through quarantine in New York or wherever it's going to stop and go through quarantine and it gets sick, it picks up some sickness and it arrives with you and it's sick. That is not the seller's fault. The seller put a healthy horse on the truck.

Sam: 56:03

So what happens in that situation? Does the buyer have insurance?

Lyndsey: 56:06

That's what I would say that the minute the horse is purchased, that you take out insurance on your new equine. But what I'm saying here is that the liability for the welfare and the well-being of the equine has shifted from the seller to the new owner, aka the buyer, and essentially the buyer's qualms then would be with the transport company. To see, well, what has happened here, so like because they've got the veterinary report. They've gotten that, you know, there's there's no ailments, there's no nothing. There's no broken bones, there's no chips, fractures, you know there's no arthritis, everything is clear. We'll just say the vet report is perfect, which is rare, rare, but it's perfect. All the x-rays are perfect. It gets on the transport truck and it comes off with a swollen leg, you know. And then suddenly the horse arrives in New York and they'll say, oh my God, this horse is injured, this horse is lame. Please send it back to Ireland, I don't want it. You've misrepresented the horse to me. You've done this when, in actual fact, liability has shifted from the seller now to the transport company. So there has been a break in what I would call like the chain of causation. There has now been a break, somebody else has stepped in and essentially we would be saying to the buyer that's not really our problem, but we can help you if you wish to go after the transport company.

Lyndsey: 57:18

Or, like recently, I've had a case where my client was the purchaser of a horse and she came to me and she said look, it turned out that there was issues with the health of the equine. He did not go and see the horse in person, but it turned out that there was veterinary issues with it and he had asked me if there was any recourse with the seller. And I said I felt no, because the seller was selling you the horse as is. It was up to you to do your due diligence to make sure that that equine was in perfect health. You know as as much as possible and you did do that and you hired a professional vet to do that. So your issue here is that the vet missed this on the report and you purchased the equine on the back of the vet report. So essentially they took a case against the vet and they won. The vet shouldn't have missed that and essentially then that the vet was responsible for the price of the equine.

Sam: 58:12

Right, okay, so all right Okay. So we've got the buyer, we've got the seller, we've got the transport company, we've got the vet.

Lyndsey: 58:20

Yeah.

Sam: 58:20

The transport company and the vet. I assume they have insurance. If you are an equine vet and you sign off on veterinary reports all the time, you've got insurance to account for all that sort of stuff. The transport company has got insurance to account for all that sort of stuff.

Sam: 58:33

So that all assumes that we're paying for the cost of the horse. But then there's the ongoing costs of the horse, because it is alive and it requires food, board, etc. So when this all happens, do you find that let's say, the buyer, the horse arrives and it's lame? Does the buyer typically send the horse back to Ireland?

Lyndsey: 58:53

They try.

Sam: 58:53

Does it keep it? They try, yeah. And then who pays for those ongoing costs?

Lyndsey: 58:59

The insurance company, the owner, and then who pays for those ongoing costs? The insurance company, the owner, they see usually, or the buyer, the new owner? Usually at that stage, when that has happened, I would have taken a step back. I may have acted for the seller In my case with my client, he was actually responsible for the cost to keep the equine alive and keep it going and to make sure that everything was okay with him, because he does have a responsibility, especially when there's ongoing litigation, to make sure that the was okay with him. Because he does have a responsibility, especially when there's ongoing litigation, to make sure that the subject matter of the proceedings stays alive and that he takes care of it as much as he could, which he did and allows that the equine is available.

Sam: 59:35

When you say he, you're talking about the buyer or the seller.

Lyndsey: 59:37

My client that I was talking about. I was using the example of the case that I had, that in the case that I had, my client was responsible for keeping the horse alive you know, and keeping it, he was the buyer or the seller. He was the buyer at the time.

Lyndsey: 59:49

He was the buyer that went wrong and but he had to sue the vet because the veterinary report was incorrect and he had been induced into the contract based on the veterinary report by nothing to do with the seller. This is why I say that it's so important that you know sometimes let the horse sell itself, let it sell itself.

Lyndsey: 1:00:07

If it's that good, let it sell itself. You don't need to say anything about it. You know someone will either come and love the horse or not. They've already seen videos. They're not there. You know, is the term kicking tires correct when you're using it with equines? But if they're coming to try a horse, they are generally interested in the horse. So let the horse sell itself.

Sam: 1:00:26

So, generally speaking, and is this actually the norm that pretty much all sellers do? Or let's say you're an amateur seller. Let's say you don't have a lawyer, you've got a horse, you're selling it. Generally speaking, have a contract and, as the seller, make sure that contract says the moment we sign this contract and the moment that horse gets safely on that transport, I am no longer responsible Because it goes against everything that a typical consumer expects, right? Typical consumer is like you don't deliver me a perfect product, then what am I paying for? But in this world of horse sports and buying and selling horses like it almost has to be consumer, you have to take that risk that, like you, are now responsible for it, because a seller cannot maintain a business where they are responsible for the quality of their product up until the moment it gets to your door.

Lyndsey: 1:01:19

No, and it's like, as you said, we as sellers you could almost say do not provide a delivery service. You know you come and you take it. You take it off our yard, you take it, put it on the transport. That's why I'm saying that you have to put a bit of the responsibility back on the buyers because, like Sam, take, for example, I buy a horse off you and we'll just say I pay $50,000 to you for it and you're like, oh my God, this is fantastic. I'm going to go to Hawaii for a week. I'm now going to go up to Alaska, I'm going to go to Montana skiing.

Lyndsey: 1:01:51

You suddenly have 20,000 euros $20,000 of that spent, and I come back to you six months later with a little bit of buyer's remorse saying do you know what, sam, that horse that you told me I'm not entirely happy with it. It's not jumping 120, like you said it was going to jump. It's only jumping a meter. I'm not factoring in here my ability to jump. Do you know that? You're probably a much better rider than I am? And the horse, I just don't get on with the horse.

Lyndsey: 1:02:17

That's kind of like tough luck. You can't have it open ended that a seller is going to be saying, ok, in six months time she could come back. What have you done to the horse in that time? So you say you have the horse in your control, care and control for two months. It gets injured in the stable. And you say, ok, do you know what? I'm going to return this now to Lindsay and I'm going, ok, no, you can't, it got injured on your watch, that's. You know, you got a perfect horse. So that's why the veterinary reports are so important. That's why those last minute videos of the horse leaving, you know, like videos of a few days coming up to it sometimes, and people are taking them now without realizing they're taking them because their horse has been sold and they've got kids coming out saying, oh, I don't want, you know, rainbow Bright to leave me, you know, and they've got videos of the horse out breezing and all this kind of stuff, and people are, without realizing it, you know, showing that the horse was.

Lyndsey: 1:03:12

The equine was in very good condition right up to the sale. It's with you for two weeks and it's got. You know, it's lame, it's got pulled ligaments, something has happened in that time, you know. Sure, it's not always the seller's fault, and I'm not. I know I'm probably coming across like pro-seller, pro-rider. I am pro-buyer too, because they are also important to the industry, do you know? But if you're open and transparent and if you're clear and the contract simply states what's agreed, well then nobody feels hard done by, nobody feels kind of like they've been cheated or, you know, nobody feels that the wool is being pulled over their eyes.

Lyndsey: 1:03:45

You have to do your due diligence when you're buying an equine. You have to, there's no question. You know you have to have a very good vet conduct the pre-purchase veterinary report. You have to get a reputable, a very good transport company if you're going to transport it overseas, because that's a long trip, do you know, and you're entrusting an investment, a high investment with people. You know that's the one area that I would say you don't skimp on. Do you know that you do it right, because ultimately it falls back on you. You know, the minute that horse leaves the yard, the seller can't be responsible.

Sam: 1:04:23

Yeah, okay, so this all right. So to to finish this podcast and wound it up, let's get to the final variable in all this. So so far this is a relatively clean process I'm a buyer listening to this, right, I'm okay.

Sam: 1:04:39

The seller gets, the seller has a seller contract. They pay the lawyer, they put the contract together. It's typically in their jurisdiction, or we get dual jurisdiction. The seller sells the horse, they take the video, the horse gets on the truck At that point. Everything from that point forward is the buyer's responsibility and the buyer makes sure they have insurance to cover anything that could happen in between. That's a relatively clean deal. Let's introduce into that clean reality the ambiguity of agents who sit in between the agents. So how do agents, in the middle of all this, complicate this whole clean, beautiful process?

Lyndsey: 1:05:11

The agents in the middle. They can complicate it, but they also will not complicate it. The complication that I think you're talking about is what you mentioned earlier. Is that, uh, you and I, I'm I'm buying a horse for you and you're saying lindsey's going to buy the horse for a hundred thousand dollars. The agents in the middle have now said to you she's actually, you know, you're selling it for 50 000 and they're splitting 50 commission between them, 25 each.

Sam: 1:05:38

I think that's what you're you're talking about that, that that combined with like, the reality of like, like, let's, let's. Okay, so let's take the typical use case here in america. Right, you are a, you are the parents of a daughter who's 10 years of age. You've decided to get into riding. You know, you went on google, you typed in horse riding. You found a local barn. You went to the barn. You met the trainer. The trainers goes, I can to the barn. You met the trainer. The trainer goes, I can get a horse for your daughter.

Sam: 1:06:04

The trainer goes out, they source a horse and then essentially, like the parent who knows nothing about anything, right, it's like how much does it cost? And they're like it's 200 grand. Like basically cuts the check or wires the cash, but like isn't involved in this process at all. So they aren't understanding that they're buying insurance, the trainer is taking care of all of it, and then the trainer is going well, I'm not responsible because I'm not the buyer, I'm just the age, I'm the middleman, right, and so it's not just the gray area of the no paperwork and the commissions, but it's also just like, in the same way in which the transport company can be responsible or the veterinarian can be responsible, like the agents are the actors and they can be responsible, but they're not on any of the paperwork. So how does that complicate the chain of custody and the responsibility and the insurance and all that sort of stuff?

Lyndsey: 1:06:55

So I'm going to break it down, because I had a matter very similar to this recently and it was a buyer in England versus a seller in Ireland, and I'll address it by explanation this way. If it's OK for you, go for it.

Lyndsey: 1:07:10

So my client had sold the horse. There was an agent in between. Now there was only one agent acting for both sides and the agent had said to my client I'm making this up, by the way, not the case, but the amounts and all that they will buy the horse for. How much do you want for the horse? She said I want 25. And the agent went back to the other side and said they want 50. And it was fine. The buyer paid the agent 50,000. The agent then paid my client 25,000, which was what was agreed. It was all agreed.

Lyndsey: 1:07:45

This was not going to be an issue for the agent until the daughter came back and didn't like the horse and said that my client had misrepresented. She tried to use the piece of consumer legislation that you mentioned earlier that they were dealers and that she wanted to return the equine during this time. And we were saying no, that they were private. It was a private sale. It wasn't actually through the course of the horse trading. And then, when it actually came down to it, there were lawyers involved and everything, and I asked a very, very simple question. I said who does your client have a contract? Who does? Sorry, sorry, my phone rang in the middle of it there and it is on. Do Not Disturb, so my sincere apologies.

Sam: 1:08:23

That's fine, so the question was a very important question you asked. Go from there.

Lyndsey: 1:08:27

Yeah. So I said who do you have a contract with? And the buyer said your client. I said no, you don't. And he said I do. I said okay, what? He then wrote to me and he said that he wanted the return of the £50,000. And I said the £50,000? Wow? I said no, I won't be. My client won't be returning that. And they were. You know.

Lyndsey: 1:08:51

They started very, very aggressive letters over and I said very simply who do you have a contract with? He said with your client. And I said well, you didn't buy the horse from my client for 50,000 euros. He said we did and I said no. So he then said here's proof of the 50,000, leaving my account. And I said yes, but to the agent's account here. So I said you must have bought it from him. Because I said the agent paid us 25,000 pounds for the equine. So I said your issue here is your contract is with the agent, it's not with me, because the amounts were different. We only paid. We only got 25,000 after we had paid the agent a commission. So technically we only got 23,000 after he had gotten a commission from us and no doubt a commission on the other side with the cash in the middle as well.

Sam: 1:09:37

So so who was on the paperwork? Who was on the contract?

Lyndsey: 1:09:42

This was done. Now Can I just make this very clear I did not do the contract. Again, people only come to me when there's problems. So I was approached with this problem and of course, the apologies always start like, oh, I should have had a contract, it should have been clear. And I'm like, yeah, well, should have, would have, could have. Do you know? We're here, we are where we are now and we need to try and fix it. So and that's my job, and you need to fix this quickly and quietly.

Lyndsey: 1:10:05

You know there's no point in having the big legal drama, because it damages the reputation of the buyer and seller and also it damages the reputation of the horse. It'll follow the horse forever. It'll say, oh, do you remember that big case about? You know X, y and Z there, that equine, and everyone will always remember it. So there was actually no paperwork. So what you were talking about there, no paperwork, and the agent got himself into trouble because there was no paperwork and because of that secret commission Agents are 100% entitled to get their commission.

Lyndsey: 1:10:35

All you have to be is transparent about it. Do you know? They are? Because they're the people that connects the buyers with the sellers. They will locate the horses. So of course they're entitled to be paid for their job. Do you know it's?

Lyndsey: 1:10:50

It's a very important job. Do you know they're at? They're at horse shows, they're scouting horses. They've got clients in the background. It's a stressful and demanding job, you know. I've been in the presence of some of them, where their phones are constantly ringing have you got this type of horse? Have you got that type of horse? And it kills them to say no. So they're like leave it with me for a few days and I'll see if I can locate one, and then they will locate one. So there are very, very good agents out there. There are very honest agents out there, contrary to what people say. And what is the problem? If you say, if there's an agent in the middle and he says, okay, lindsay, is is going to, you want a hundred grand, a hundred thousand dollars for your horse. I want a commission out of that and I want, you know, ten percent. So I want ten percent from you. So that's ten. I'm very bad with math now, sam, so don't yeah, don't think I'm, you know the figures are all like that yeah.

Lyndsey: 1:11:35

So I want ten thousand dollars from you. So you'll be getting ninety thousand, you know. And then he says to to me saying, look, I found this horse for you. You know it's going to be 110,000 from you, so you're going to have to pay me 10,000. There is no problem with that. You know what is the problem? They do a very, very meaningful job. They keep this industry ticking over. So I don't see the problem with them charging it. I just have a problem with the secret one, and most of the time, sellers and buyers will have no problem in paying that commission. You know, once they're told, they will have no problem with that whatsoever. So, like, it's just about being transparent and that's what's happening with the industry.

Lyndsey: 1:12:15

The industry is becoming more transparent, you know, and people are. You know those days of kind of everything being hidden under the floorboards are gone. You know they're like well, sorry, they're not gone, they're on the way out. You know they're on the way out. The riders, and the riders are running legitimate businesses. You know they don't want to be known for this. The agents are running legitimate businesses. You know they want to be able to get loans from bank. Agents are running legitimate businesses. They want to be able to get loans from bank. Having $20,000 in my mattress is not going to be able for me to get a mortgage with the bank to show that it's deposit. I have to explain where that money came from.

Sam: 1:12:51

Well, so just two final questions. One is coming back to the agents and that relationship. Let's assume that there was paperwork before that deal went sideways. In that sort of circumstance, if you have seller agent, buyer, let's make it even more complex. You've got seller, seller agent, buyer agent, buyer. Who are the contracts between? Is there a contract between the buyer and the agent? And then there's a contract between the agent and the agent and a contract between the agent and the seller. So there's a contract between the agent and the agent and a contract between the agent and the seller.

Sam: 1:13:22

So there's three contracts. There's three contracts in that chain of sale.

Lyndsey: 1:13:25

There should be three.

Sam: 1:13:26

yes, yeah, so that should be what it should.

Lyndsey: 1:13:28

that's how it should be done, yeah yeah, and like the contract, like the word contract. At times and I'm not saying you're doing this the word contract can be used in dramatic format. Contract is just a written agreement, you know, like the contract between the seller and the seller's agent can be a one pager to say that I confirmed that I will locate a horse and I will take a commission of 10% of the sale price If things, if, for whatever reason, it doesn't work out and the equine is returned to you, I return my commission on that, you know, keeps everybody's mind focused to make sure that everything is done legitimately. And the same with the buyer, you know, and the buyer's agent. It can be a one-page paragraph with signatures at the end, or even electronic signatures nowadays, you know that that can work off, you know. So it doesn't have to be the in-depth five, six-page contract that you're going to need a lawyer to review for you. It's just an agreement reduced to writing terms, signed and dated. That's a contract do you know?

Sam: 1:14:26

Okay, okay, that makes sense. Okay, and then to my final question, and then we'll call it a day. You made the comment that this under the table, under the mattress, under the floorboards culture is on the way out why there's a financial incentive for it not to disappear, and it's an industry that has been able to hold on to bad practices for a long time, because the equestrian industry has a lot of unique parts of its culture, right? What is the incentive? Or what do you put it down to that it is starting to commercialize and mature commercially to the point that that culture is disappearing.

Lyndsey: 1:15:06

So I can't fully answer that question. My experience on it and I suppose it would be the hope as well is that everybody is more professional. The writers are at the top level. The agents are at their top level. The writers are at the top level, the agents are at their top level. Everybody wants to make money because essentially, you know, 90% of the world want to do. They want to make money, you know. But people want to protect their reputations and the other side of it is is that I know you have it in and I'm not. I don't mean to generalize here and please don't take any of it. Actually you're Australian. You only live in.

Sam: 1:15:40

Australia.

Lyndsey: 1:15:41

You only live in Australia, you're Australian, you only live. So the litigation and litigious culture in America is quite strong and it's getting stronger across the world and people are becoming more and more litigious in every way. You know. Even when a car sale goes south, you know in every way. So they feel like, okay. So I've spent $200 thousand dollars on an equine seven months ago that's now sitting out in the field broken down. I want my money back. You know I've such a bad purchase, such a bad this, you know. So people are becoming more and more litigious and I think that the younger generation and God, this is no sight on the older generation.

Lyndsey: 1:16:19

I'm afraid I'm going to insult people. That wouldn't be my intention at all. But everyone wants to run a professional business. You know they all want to be known as professional. If you run a professional business, you're going to entice in professional investors, top investors. You're going to have people take you seriously and I think people are realizing that this sport is a serious sport. It's a high risk sport for everyone involved. It's a high like nevermind the investment side for the riders, the grooms, the trainers, for everybody involved in the ground. It's a high risk sport. You know you're dealing with 750 kg animal, that if he wakes up in a bad mood, you know a kick could really hurt you or kill you, you know. So it's kind of like everyone's trying to make everything more professional and it's the right way. Every other industry is that way.

Lyndsey: 1:17:02

You look at the racing industry, you look at all of the other kind of equine ones that are there. In order to make money, I would feel that you have to run a professional establishment. You can't be taking cash in hand for stuff no, look each to their own, as they say. You can do what you want. Stuff. No, look each to their own, as they say. You know you can do what you want.

Lyndsey: 1:17:24

But that days I'm kind of like trying to con people out of it, because word of mouth spreads very quickly in a very tight niche community like the equestrian community across the world and you don't want to have that reputation, because reputation is all they have. That's why I feel that it's on the way out, or maybe it's not. Maybe it's a hope that it's on the way out, but I can honestly say that the people that I've worked with in the equestrian industry all have that mindset. You know they're very professional. They want to do things right. You know they want to get the results. You know they just want to be professional and they are professional and they realize that this is a professional career. You know, similar to any athlete, as you mentioned earlier, like if you're a baseball player, if you're a basketball player, a hockey player, you know you've got a sports agent, you've got a contract with your team.

Lyndsey: 1:18:08

You know you've got contracts every which way. You feel like each week you're signing your life away. You know there's new papers being put in front of you. There's new sponsorship deals. There's new endorsement deals deals. There's new endorsement deals. You're constantly there's nobody kind of saying, okay, well, on the face of it, there's nobody saying you're going to have to give me an extra 20,000 for brokering this deal. It's all included within the terms.

Sam: 1:18:30

Sure. So I agree with what you're saying and I think it makes sense. I think a large part of it too is social media has made it hard to outrun your reputation and your bad reputation. But I will say this and why I think these shysty deals not shysty deals, but let's just call them exorbitant commissions with very little paperwork will continue is because, at the end of the day, if you are in the commission business, it's very, very hard to put the number 50% down on that piece of paper.

Sam: 1:19:00

Yes, it is. It's very, very hard to put that number, 50% down on that piece of paper. Yes, it is. It's very, very hard to put that and not have the person paying the money be like what? Why are you?

Lyndsey: 1:19:08

getting 50% 50%?

Sam: 1:19:10

I don't think so. Yeah, so that is a strong incentive to you know, a $10,000 commission versus a $50,000 commission is a strong incentive to not pay above the level.

Lyndsey: 1:19:22

There's always, in any industry, any area of anywhere. There's always going to be underhand payments in every area of professional business across the world. No business is perfect to say that it's not going to happen. There's always going to be people that are going to do it. They always say cash is king and that will never, ever be fully stamped out across, you know, across the world, all industries across all industries.

Lyndsey: 1:19:46

It may never go away. But yeah, I get where you're saying that it's hard to put the 50 down. But the other side of it is that if you're able to find the horse and bring in and somebody else is willing to pay it, like so if you agree a price with me that you want for the horse, and if you say a hundred thousand and they can say, look, whatever you get after a hundred thousand, I'm happy. So provided you go and you come back and say, look, I got 175. You agreed a hundred with me. You know, and you know again, agreements. What's the issue? If you're being transparent, do you know? If the agreement is there, it's not saying, oh, I want to make 50% commission. You know. It's just saying, ok, look, I will try and fight for my commission and see if I can get my commission added onto the sale price. If I can't get my commission added onto the sale price, you know we have to revisit it ourselves. You know that you might have to pay me extra to be delighted that they don't have to pay you anything for their commission. It's the same with my legal fees If I was to do like a personal injury litigation, which is, you know I'm not like Better Call Saul, but that would be.

Lyndsey: 1:20:48

One of my areas of expertise is personal injury. I'm also not an ambulance chaser, but we would fight with the insurance company for our fees. So I would have a set fee agreed with the client to say, look, no matter what I get from the insurance company, you know you are still going to owe me $10,000. Do you know? That's it. No matter what I get for them, even if I get $100,000 from the insurance company, you are still going to owe me this. Do you know so? But once you're clear and it's there in writing, do you know? And the other side is aware, then what's the problem with what the commission, the agent gets.

Sam: 1:21:25

Yeah, it's a good argument.

Lyndsey: 1:21:26

It's a good argument.

Sam: 1:21:27

It's like, at the end of the day, like theoretically, the seller is selling it to the agent and the agent is turning around and selling it to you. It's not really a commission, it's just the new price.

Lyndsey: 1:21:35

And, like, the buyer and seller may not have come in contact had it not been for this agent come in contact had it not been for this agent. So it's worked out and it's benefited all parties. So that's the other side of it. They play a vital role in it. People will say no, god, she's, they're market makers. Yeah, People will say no, they're.

Sam: 1:21:54

Same as Wall Street bankers? Yeah, okay.

Lyndsey: 1:21:56

Okay, we won't make that comparison now.

Sam: 1:22:00

Maybe that isn't the kindest comparison, but yeah, well, lindsay comparison now. Maybe that isn't the kindest comparison.

Lyndsey: 1:22:05

But yeah, yeah, so all right, lindsey.

Sam: 1:22:06

Well, thank you so much. That's been amazing, it's been fascinating. I'm sure a lot of people will get a lot out of this. I mean, I know I did even just for like, even just for people who listen to this, who just do their own small, private sale, like without getting a lawyer involved and stuff. But it just gives them a lot to think about. Like shit, maybe I've just gotten lucky today. Maybe in the future I should even have a simple bill of contract, bill of sale, that says as soon as it gets on that truck, I'm not responsible. Yeah, and I'm taking that video.

Lyndsey: 1:22:30

And even if it's just going down the road to a neighbor, yes because once you're in the clear, then the horse, the equine, has left your, your premises, in tip-top shape, and it's the same with, like you know, signing, liability waivers and all that kind of stuff for equestrian centers. You know, just, they're simple documents, they can be got, I'm pretty sure if you Google. I shouldn't even be saying that, but I'm pretty sure that there are like precedent packs that you can buy. Do you know? They are worth it? I do them, but they're tailored for clients. I do them, but they're tailored for clients.

Lyndsey: 1:23:00

You know I don't have like a marketplace on Facebook or like Google or anything for that, because they're tailored to each client. I look at your needs and say, okay, look, this is what you need, these are the precedents you need. There you go, and then you build on it from that.

Sam: 1:23:14

Yeah, awesome, all right, well, thank you very much have a great day.

Lyndsey: 1:23:16

Thank you for having me.

Sam: 1:23:17

You too, I'll have to have you back on in the future next time I find a legal area of the equestrian industry that I want to know more about.

Lyndsey: 1:23:23

That would be great. I'd love to Thank you so much for having me, Sam.

Sam: 1:23:26

Thanks, lizzie, have a great day, you too Bye-bye. Bye.