horse arena grooming/ soil pulverizer

[mojoinco]

Wow -- that Befco is ~$1600 for a 6' unit. I have a unit I found on Craigslist for a $100. It's not a finish unit, but would work well with something like a roller behind it. All it is a piece of tool bar (~2-3" square stock set at 45 degrees -- diamond shape when looking at the end) and some 'C' tines attached to it, then a pair of trailing arms with implement wheels as gauge wheels. One could just go to the junkyard and get a front wheel drive car rear axle and use that instead. Or use a roller assembly of some sort.

But it sounds like you are looking for a ready made solution.

 

[Mike120]

Before we put in our sand arena we had dirt. I used a tiller and a chain drag and it worked fine. Making a decent footing isn't difficult if you watch what you're doing. Get it too deep though and you're looking for soft tissue injuries. The biggest issue we had was drying out the arena after a rain. I used much more equipment/fuel to do that and finally broke down and bought a TR3.....best investment I ever made. Makes great footing and could stir the mud around to get it dry. With a large arena you need to keep it level which the TR3 does well, otherwise you end up with a lot of water and it can take a week or more to dry out.

If you only use your arena once in a while get the cheapest stuff you can get away with, but if you are dependent on having an arena for training & show prep, spend the money to get the proper tools. Actually I'm happier with my TR3 in sand with a profile blade....if I had stuck with dirt, I think I would have been happier with a Ground Hog.

 

[txcowboycj59]

I know these posts are somewhat old, but I have the same problem and the original poster. My soil is clay/sand and packs down very hard. I disc'd it up. Went over it several times to break up the clods. Then bought a used Arena Werks and went over that to smooth it out. I got it to about 4 inches deep, however, I still have the dirt clods which harden like rocks. I have looked at several of these pulverizers with the dual rollers on the back. 2 problems - #1, the teeth are fixed to 2 inches in depth and if you need it deeper then it won't work. #2- every manufacturer claims their product will break up my rock like clods, yet not one of them has come up with a video showing this. These things cost anywhere from $1500 to $4000 and I cannot justify spending that kind of money not knowing it's going to work. I ended up renting a tiller which worked, however, takes alot of time as I had to go over and over my arena. Still not rideable as I couldn't break down the clod rocks enough. Any other thoughts on how to get a rideable arena with this kind of soil?

 

[Artisan]

snip
Any other thoughts on how to get a rideable arena with this kind of soil?

Is it possible to import in a few truck loads of, maybe sand or whatnot and till it in
so you have a different type of soil? Maybe experiment first w/ some mixtures
then remove some of what you have and add back the same amount of media
and tiller it all up, again AFTER you do some tests... ehh?

 

[Soundguy]

bring in some new soil! top coat it...

 

[Johndeere3720]

Yes, bring in some loads of sand or at least better soil. With quite a bit of experience in Horse arenas you defiantly cant go wrong with replacing the footing. If you were to remove the top few inches of ground in your arena and replace it with sand you will defiantly see a difference in how well your footing works up when you work it with your tractor. Hope this helps.