Dinsmore Equine Attorneys Give Guidance on Horse Sales and Adoption Contracts

In February of 2024,  the Retired Racehorse Project hosted a weekly seminar series designed to educate for-profit and non-profit professionals who are in the equine industry. 

The organization invited Dinsmore equine attorneys Laura Holoubek and Anne Guillory, who gave perspective on sales and adoption contracts.

Points from their presentation were published in Paulick Report, North America's leading independent horse racing publication. An excerpt is below.

They’ve seen a wide range of horse sales and adoptions go sideways – including people trying to return horses as long as a year after purchase. Both say the best way to protect both the buyer and the seller (or the organization and adopter, in the non-profit realm) is to have a good bill of sale or sales/adoption contract...

Guillory noted that a good contract will say that the seller is not warranting the horse’s “fitness for a particular purpose” or its “merchantability” – referring to the horse’s athletic prospects and resale prospects, respectively. The seller should also avoid making concrete statements about what they expect the horse can do athletically or physically, because these could later be used by the buyer as “warranties” should the horse fail to live up to those projections.

Holoubek also suggests a “merger clause.”

“This clause says if it’s not in this agreement, it’s not part of our deal,” she said.

This prevents someone from trying to claim after a sale that a prior conversation or correspondence contains something different and overriding to the sales contract.

Read the full article from Paulick Report here.