Type of material to use in a horse ring?

[smilingreen]

Hey, quick question....I have a customer that wants an outdoor jumping ring built on his property. My question is: What type of material do you put down in the ring after you have excavated the dirt out and made the ring level? His daughter does horse jumping and is fairly good at it. He wants me to excavate out and area and add material( I presume around 4" of material) in to soften the landing of the horse and incase the rider falls off to reduce injury. Also, how do you maintain this material and how often? I am in Middle Tennessee. Any help on this subject would be greatly appriciated from you horse guys! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[DaveNay]

Unfortunately the answer to this question is the same as the question "How much does a tractor cost?" /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

There are many different footings for horse arenas from simple wood chips all the way up to multi layer professionally installed systems that are about 3 feet deep and include drain pipes and heating elements (frozen ground hurts). We are building our arena this summer too, and we have settle on a mixture of shredded recycled rubber (from tires I think), and coarse washed sand. This combination of large and small materials helps prevent packing and is still nice and soft for the rider and horse. A little bit less expensive would be just straight sand. Just make sure that it is coarse sand with the fines removed.

Dave

 

[smilingreen]

Hi ya Dave,
I see you live in Dekalb county...I grew up in Boone county, west of Belvidere. Left there in 1990, though.
I appriciate the response. They have not told me what type of material they wanted in the ring, yet. I just figured I would get some suggestions before I put the bid together.

 

[DaveNay]

Dave,

I would make sure that you itemize that portion of the bid, as it will be highly succeptible to change as the cutomer decides what they want.

I can guarantee that you wouldn't recognize the Boon cty or Dekalb cty areas anymore.....lots and lots and lots of changes since you left.

Dave

 

[cowboydoc]

I agree with Dave. A washed sand and rubber footing would be great. There are more expensive solutions and less expensive but that mix would be a great compromise, especially for jumpers. As far as maintenance if you're looking for a simple solution that require no training to the owner look at Parma Groomer, Reveal 4n1, Groundhog, Kiser, TR3, or for a cheaper version that does a decent job look at the rotary harrow. All of these will do a great job on the footing material but will leave the base undisturbed.

 

[Poppa]

I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

Where do you get the shredded rubber?
What "mix" sand to rubber do you use?
Does the rubber need to be added to? Seems to me that small particle size rubber like that would degrade in the sun and end up as rubber dust. Is that a problem or my own active imagination?

One last question. Is there a Perfect size arena or is it just build it as big as you can?
Sorry, edited this because it occurred to me that Arena Size had to be dependent on possible activities. So, I guess I would be interested in just regular warm-up and workout activity, nothing specialized. Don't know if that makes sense but I am still learning about horses.


Thanks, Mike

 

[cowboydoc]

http://www.perma-flex1.com/ This is the rubber that we use. It is very resistant to breaking down. Do a search on arena footing and you will get all of the info. that you need.

The mix all depends on what you want to do and what your area calls for. The link above or others will tell you what ratio, if any, to use.

As far as dust if you go 100% rubber there is little if any. The mix with sand will give you dust. We use a product that will eliminate dust even in dirt or 100% sand arenas.

As far as the ideal size I don't think there really is one. I've worked horses in everything from a 12x12 stall to 5 sections of land. Like you said it really depends on what you want to do as well. If all you want to do is exercise a horse 80x160 would be a nice size. This would give you good room to do circles and lead changes with and some distance to work on tracking straight as well. Personally I like at least 200' long and 100' wide for a workout arena. But you can get by on half of that if you need to. My own arena is 250 x 400. But we do alot of different things and we often have five or six horses in the arena at the same time so the bigger arena allows us to do what we need to. When we host ropings, ranch work shows, or cuttings we'll have 40-60 horses here so the size is really needed.

 

[Poppa]

Thank you for the link. The FAQ page on the perma flex site answered most of the questions I had and led to a few more links on Arena building. Again, thanks

Mike

 

[smilingreen]

Thanks for the link, Richard. I will print out some of the material and show it to my customer. I believe they will go for the sand/rubber mixture. Where do you order the Perma-flex rubber from? I see one of our local colleges have an arena with perma-flex in it. I think I will take a day trip down and see it. Maybe they can give me some more answers to my questions.

 

[cowboydoc]

Call TIREC at 856-478-4491. Make sure they know you are a contractor and you should get the discounted rate.