Horse arena rake

[Lone Wolf]

Just disc and cleaned up an area in my pasture for my wife to use for her barrel racing practice. I am looking at a King Kutter rotary harrow vs TR3 drag rake ($1200 vs $4000) Does any any body know if the King Kutter would work on a dirt arena to keep it soft and not so packed down? I have seen it work good on a sand arena but not sure about a dirt one. Can't do the sand thing right now for our arena and disc it every few weeks and trying to level it out is a pain in the butt. Thought about those drag gates that you get from Tractor Supple and hook to an ATV but not sure if the teeth would loosen the dirt up enough to make it softer? Thanks for any feed back.

 

[Luremaker]

You need a Jake Rake :thumbsup:.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/185508-jake-rake.html

Jakes Implements - Home

 

[Gizmo2]

I don't know about the harrow but every hear of Splints? What you need is sand or the like.

 

[ninefinger]

Know zero about horses or how deep you need to cut but a pulverizer may do the deed.

 

[Johndeere3720]

You need a Jake Rake :thumbsup:.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/185508-jake-rake.html

Jakes Implements - Home

Yes, check out my Jake Rakes. They will cultivate, level, and harrow a hard packed arena with ease. Fill out a form on my website and we can get you set up for one. And you can get one in any color! :thumbsup:

 

[WM75Guy]

I used a 6' tiller to make my arena. I then had a doser come in to level it with laser levels. I use a 8' Red Master II harrow to drag it. I paid $2800 for the RMII. Keeps it broke up and level just fine. My soil is sandy loam.

Red Master Harrow - horse arena harrow for maintaining footings

 

[WM75Guy]

Just disc and cleaned up an area in my pasture for my wife to use for her barrel racing practice. I am looking at a King Kutter rotary harrow vs TR3 drag rake ($1200 vs $4000) Does any any body know if the King Kutter would work on a dirt arena to keep it soft and not so packed down? I have seen it work good on a sand arena but not sure about a dirt one. Can't do the sand thing right now for our arena and disc it every few weeks and trying to level it out is a pain in the butt. Thought about those drag gates that you get from Tractor Supple and hook to an ATV but not sure if the teeth would loosen the dirt up enough to make it softer? Thanks for any feed back.

The tractor has to go fairly fast so the King Kutter can dig in and spin at a fast enough speed. The rotary harrows do not do well on levelling ruts such as a barrel pattern unless you do it frequently. Notice how often they drag at a rodeo when they run barrels. Depending on how often and for how long she practices you could be doing a lot of dragging. I was not impressed with the workmanship on the KK rotary harrows I looked at. With hard dirt you may be doing a lot of welding of the teeth pins back on.

 

[donais]

this is what i made works awesome levels very well kinda looks alot like an arena-vator. s tine spring teeth dig real well the leveling blade smoothes it nicely and the roller firms up the ground.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Thanks for the feedback, looked at a few rakes and have to agree the KK rotary harrow is out of the question. There seems to be 3 different styles of rakes- with a roller (TR3 and Parma Groomer)to smooth the dirt, the non-roller (Jakes) which I can't tell if it smooths the dirt between horse barrels and the non roller but has a plate on the end to smooth the dirt (Frontier RA 1108).

 

[ustmd]

We are in a similiar boat to you.

We do have a sand arena, but have an issue with grass and the sand getting a hard crust on it.

So far, the best tools for my money has been a landscape rake to break it up and dethatch, followed up by a drag harrow to smooth it out.

Good luck.

 

[donais]

look up parma arena groomer on the "tube" that is how mine works

 

[CompactTractorFan]

You need a Jake Rake :thumbsup:.

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/attachments/185508-jake-rake.html

Jakes Implements - Home

Yes, check out my Jake Rakes. They will cultivate, level, and harrow a hard packed arena with ease. Fill out a form on my website and we can get you set up for one. And you can get one in any color! :thumbsup:

I was just going to say the same thing...

 

[Lone Wolf]

Jake rake-I see the rake will loosen the dirt up but will it smooth it out for horses to run on between barrels or poles since there is no roller on the end? Looking at pictures I can't tell or if someone has first hand knowledge.

 

[dmay]

We are in a similiar boat to you.

We do have a sand arena, but have an issue with grass and the sand getting a hard crust on it.

So far, the best tools for my money has been a landscape rake to break it up and dethatch, followed up by a drag harrow to smooth it out.

Good luck.

I have a landscape rake myself. Pull it with tines forward to do the break up work. Turn it around and pull it with tines in reverse to smooth and compact. No drag harrow required.

 

[dmay]

An outdoor horse arena has three basic needs. Good drainage, sure footing, adequate cushion to support the horses movement. This is very hard to attain with a dirt base arena.

The typical 'recipe' for an outdoor arena in my area where we get a fair amount of rain is as follows:

3 inches coarse sand (cushion)
1 inch of compacted 1/4" crushed rock (sure footing and base separation)
7 inches of compacted clay sand (drainage)
sub-base graded for good drainage

In the above example you never need to touch your base material. You just need to maintain the top sand layer so this calls for different attachments then ones required to break up a dirt base arena. Actually much less expensive attachments. If you are thinking of moving to a sand arena consider doing this now. The cost of attachment savings may just pay for your base material upgrades.

Hope this info helps.

 

[JohninCT]

So far, the best tools for my money has been a landscape rake to break it up and dethatch, followed up by a drag harrow to smooth it out.

We use the same combo with our outdoor arena. You can hook the drag harrow to the back of the rake and fluff and smooth in one shot.

 

[Learning to Farm]

We use the same combo with our outdoor arena. You can hook the drag harrow to the back of the rake and fluff and smooth in one shot.

John, can you post a picture of how you have that set up? Thanks!

 

[Johndeere3720]

With my rakes, it actually does a very good job at leveling an arena because the rake will pull excessive amounts of soil previously cultivated and fill in the holes and ruts an arena may have. My grandpa had used a rotary harrow for years, claiming that it was the best rake for leveling because of it's large foot print but I never saw it actually do the leveling part it was claimed to do. With my rake, with the top link easily removed by 2 pins, you could easily put a chain in it's place and the rake will float across the ground and still have enough weight to level out any holes or ruts.

 

[Gizmo2]

I have a landscape rake myself. Pull it with tines forward to do the break up work. Turn it around and pull it with tines in reverse to smooth and compact. No drag harrow required.

We used a landscape rake also but removed every other tine, fast and easy but you need sand not dirt. First pass deeper than the finish pass.

 

[JohninCT]

John, can you post a picture of how you have that set up? Thanks!

Nothing special. Just wrap a chain around the rake and hook it to the drag. A full width piece of chain link fence chained to the rake wheels would be better since the drag mat we have is only 4 ft wide and doesn't cover the whole width. We don't really use it this way any more since the wife got a quad that she uses to pull the drag mat around. Usually, this is enough to do a quick grooming. When the conditions are really dry and the surface gets hard, I use the rake to fluff it up