How Equ'un works

Stallion owners publish listings that present a stallion, its pedigree, its results, its breeding conditions and its prices. Mare owners browse them, compare offers, write to the seller and send a breeding request, with or without an account.

The contract the service lets the parties conclude is a breeding contract: the stallion breeds the mare during a given season, on the conditions set by the seller (price, guarantees, breeding method). That contract binds only the seller and the client. Equ'un provides the tools to prepare and follow it (request, commercial proposal, contract, payment schedule, mare documents, pregnancy follow-up), but is not a party to it and does not perform the breeding service.

Anyone with an Equ'un account can publish a stallion listing, whether they act as a professional (stud farm, farmer, business) or as a private individual, outside any professional activity. Each seller declares their own capacity; Equ'un does not check it.

Each listing shows "Professional seller" or "Private seller" according to that declaration. Nothing is shown as long as the seller has not declared their capacity.

When the seller is a private individual, you have neither the right of withdrawal nor the legal guarantee of conformity of the Consumer Code, which only apply to a sale concluded with a professional. The contract is then governed by the Civil Code, in particular its rules on contracts and on civil liability (articles 1101 and following).

Search results only contain published listings. By default they are ranked from the most recent to the oldest, by the date the listing was created. You can choose another order:

• Oldest first: from the earliest creation date to the latest.
• Price, ascending or descending: the starting price, tax included, of the nearest open or full season from the current year on, or else the price of the listing. Listings without a price always come last.
• Best rated: the average score of the published reviews, then the number of reviews, then the creation date. A listing without reviews counts as zero.
• Distance: from the nearest to the furthest from the place you enter, measured from the centre of the stallion's town. Without a place and a radius, the default order applies.

Filters (breed, discipline, price, region and so on) narrow the listings shown without changing their order. The order applied is shown above the results.

On the map, when an area seen up close (zoom level 10 or more) holds more than 500 listings, the service shows a selection of listings spread across the whole area instead of the chosen order, so the map stays readable. The words "Selection spread across the map" then say so.

The pages by breed, by region and by discipline list their 24 most recent stallions, from the most recent to the oldest. Under a listing, the "Other stallions from" block shows up to four other listings online from the same owner, from the most recent to the oldest. The block of stallions of the same breed "nearby" shows up to four listings from other owners, from the nearest to the furthest, then from the most recent to the oldest.

No position can be bought. The Pro and Elite subscriptions, like any other payment, do not improve the rank of a listing: they only raise how many listings and contents a seller can publish.

The service is free for mare owners: searching, writing to a seller, sending a request, following the breeding record and leaving a review cost nothing.

Sellers have a free plan and two paid subscriptions, Pro and Elite. Every feature is available on the free plan; the subscriptions raise the volume caps (published listings, photos and videos, records and so on) and add presentation options to shares and exports. Equ'un takes no commission on breeding services.

The price of a breeding service is paid directly to the seller, outside Equ'un, by the means agreed with them (bank transfer, cheque and so on). Equ'un receives, holds and transfers no sum owed for a breeding service, and does not issue the invoices: the seller does.

The payment requests a seller can send from Equ'un are not invoices. Only the sellers' subscriptions are paid to Equ'un, through Stripe.

Equ'un provides no guarantee and no insurance on breeding services: not on the pregnancy, not on the birth of a live foal, not on the performance of the contract nor on the solvency of the parties. Any guarantee (live foal, mare not in foal, carry-over to another season) is the one the seller offers in their listing and contract, and the seller alone is answerable for it.

A dispute about a breeding service is settled between the seller and the client. Send your complaint to the seller first.

A professional seller must let a consumer client refer the dispute to a consumer mediator free of charge, and give them the mediator's details; when the seller has entered them in the service, they appear on their proposals and contracts. A private seller has no such obligation.

Equ'un does not arbitrate disputes between the parties. On request, Equ'un can pass on items of the breeding record (dates, documents exchanged, signature evidence), within the limits of its obligations and of personal data protection. For a complaint about the Equ'un service itself, write to [email protected]: the terms of use describe what follows.

Only the owner of a mare who has a breeding record with the stallion on Equ'un can leave a review, within 90 days after that record closes (a positive pregnancy check, or a close without pregnancy). The service checks this link against the record the seller entered; it does not check the facts the review relates. A stallion owner cannot review their own stallion.

How reviews work:

• Reward: none. Equ'un does not pay for reviews, does not buy any and never highlights a review in exchange for payment.
• Publication: a review is published as soon as it is sent, with no waiting time. It shows its publication date and, when the record makes it known, the month of the breeding service it is about.
• Order: from the most recent to the oldest; your own review comes first when you have published one.
• Duration: on the stallion's page, a review stays visible as long as the stallion's listing is online. The owner's public profile page, available as long as their account is active and they have at least one listing online, also gathers the reviews of the stallions whose listing is no longer online. A review is deleted with the stallion's listing. It is hidden as soon as its author asks to delete their account, reappears if the request is cancelled, and is deleted with the account.
• Changes: a review cannot be edited. Its author can delete it: its text, its scores and the owner's reply are then erased for good. Only one review is allowed per stallion and per author, even after a deletion.
• Contact: visitors cannot contact the author of a review through Equ'un. The stallion owner can publish one reply to each review, and can write to its author in the breeding record that links them.
• Removal: a review can be refused or removed when it breaks the rules of the service: inappropriate or insulting content, spam, false information, harassment, unlawful content, a review that is not authentic. The author is told about the removal and its reason, and can contest it.
• Reporting: anyone, even without an account, can report a review with the "Report" button; the Equ'un team reviews every report.