I think this is a case where they deliberately spent more money to get what they thought was the best material, but in the end turned out not to be. Would have been a lot better off and cheaper with the right kind of soil. They're spending lots of money to do things right, this just turns out to be a bad choice.
Attachment to mix material in horse arena
- Thread starter BeezFun
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I think this is a case where they deliberately spent more money to get what they thought was the best material, but in the end turned out not to be. Would have been a lot better off and cheaper with the right kind of soil. They're spending lots of money to do things right, this just turns out to be a bad choice.
Actually, sand makes great footing for an arena. Guessing by the size they're probably doing Dressage. The only problems with sand are cost and dust. Dust will increase over the years as the sand breaks down. I know from experience that after 20 years you have to replace it. On a big arena that can be expensve.....my sand had an 85 mile round trip per truckload. Having had both dirt and sand arenas though, I'll take sand any day. What is best however, depends on the riding discipline and how much you can afford.
Dust can be controlled with either sprinklers or misters depending on the average humidity in the area. Adding something like Arena Moist will significantly reduce how often you have to wet it (I don't recommend it for an outdoor arena though). The shreaded tires are really good in theory and there's a place about 30 miles from me that makes the stuff. Over the years though, I've watched other people add it to arenas with very mixed results. I've come to the conclusion that it's only worth using in a dirt arena or a race track and that it's not needed at all if you invest in a good arena rake. Personally I think that the Ground Hog and the TR3 are the best and prefer the TR3 for sand and the Ground Hog for dirt.
Mike_Kanzer
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They may want to check the depth of their footing as well. For dressage and flat riding you probably shouldn't have more than 2" footing over the conmpacted base ( stone dust). I have an outdoor ring with sand. We bought a low dust specialty sand from an equine footing company. Fortunately they were only 30 miles from us. If the footing feels like a dry sandy beach it may be too deep. I have seen outdoor arenas with sand/crumb rubber mix but again the total thickness is usually not greater than about two inches.
I agree and that's a good point, too often people make their footing too deep and end up with soft tissue injuries. We have jumpers, so ours is about 3 1/2 inches deep and we don't let it get too dry or fluffy. I keep the profile blade about 1" above the base so I have a more compacted layer below the lighter stuff. Seems to work fine as we've had no injuries and I haven't heard any complaining (which I certainly would hear if it wasn't to the female riders liking).
jenkinsph
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I don't know anything about horses but the dust issue I can address. Good quality sand used in concrete should be graded coarse enough that it has a minimum amount of dust or fines in it. This may be a good solution to the problem of dust. Nothing last forever though and I can understand where twenty years down the road it has been pulverized to the point it would need replacing. I would think that the right moisture content and a good arena rake would make this work well.
sweettractors
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Maybe a chain harrow or possibly a tine based ripper with pretty close spacings. Ken Sweet