Horse arena ground prep

[Dragonpharm]

I'm looking into setting up an outdoor arena for my daughter. Have some questions for anyone that may have built one. In my research I've found a ton of information. Unfortunately there are a lot of different ideas and some are way out of reach for this year's budget. I'm considering just grading the area to remove vegetation and roughly level then hauling in washed sand to build up footing. I know it would probably be best to put down a geotextile fabric and 5-6" of rock first but that may be cost prohibitive right now. Has anyone done a basic arena this way? The sooner I get this ready for her the happier she will be. If I make it too involved it will be over budget and likely take a long time to complete.

Should have mentioned, our soil is a light clay and sand mix. It doesn't hold water very well. Several neighbors had to have clay hauled in for ponds.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Gee Ray]

What kind of tools do you have to work with? Box blade, disk, cultivator or tiller?

 

[drssg]

I don't know anyone that has used the approach you describe. I think the main impact of different approaches is the percentage of time that the arena is usable.

We did tons of riding during my childhood on a level section of a field, which had zero prep work.

Anything outdoors will be unusable when the ground is frozen solid or covered in snow. Unless you have fantastic natural drainage, it will be unusable after heavy rains.

The more costly approaches can ensure the footing is to the rider's liking (not too hard, soft, deep, or shallow) and it can decrease the amount of time it's too wet.

I don't see anything wrong with trying the low-cost solution that you describe. Worst case, you may decide to use a more involved approach later.

If that happens, I recommend finding an experienced arena excavator in your area. This is a job where the cost of materials can be more substantial than the cost of labor, and you can waste a lot of material money on a faulty approach.

 

[5030]

Have a female friend with an outdoor arena and she uses a Harley Rake to prep hers. Same soil you have.

 

[ponytug]

My first question is what kind of riding? Barrel racing is different from dressage, which is different from jumping or western pleasure, or training a young horse. Some horses are tougher than others, and more tolerant of imperfect footing. (Often due to conformation.)

If it were me, I would spring for the geotextile (it keeps your precious sand from disappearing into the soil), and if the budget permits, round 3/8" pea gravel for hoof soundness, if pea gravel isn't in the budget, washed sand works, too, just not too deep, and make sure it is free flowing. Builders sand is a non-starter. Avoiding any footing that sticks, or is too slick, with some cushioning is the goal. If you can set up the arena with a 1-2% grade perpendicular to the long axis, it will shed rain water faster, and be ready for use sooner.

I put French drains under geotextile and round pea gravel to convert my clay swap to an all weather riding arena (limited dressage, mostly schooling horses, and turn out). My only regret is not spreading lime (to stabilize the clay) and mixing it into the top six inches before compacting it; we had a few super clay spots that just plain liquified for the first two to three years before stabilizing.

All the best,

Peter

 

[WM75Guy]

Like Ponytug stated, the riding discipline determines the type of arena. For dressage you want a firm footing. Western will need a deeper, softer footing. I was able to create our dressage arena by tilling the sandy soil and having it levelled by a dozer with a laser guided blade. We just mixed in some mulch to give it a firmer footing. We drag it smooth and then water it before riding to keep the dust down.

In this video of Olympic dressage competition, you can see that the horses don't hardly make a dent in the arena surface.

 

[Dragonpharm]

What kind of tools do you have to work with? Box blade, disk, cultivator or tiller?

Presently deciding on box blade vs tow behind scraper. Will have at least a drag harrow as well. Harrow may turn into two. One for the tractor and a smaller one for ATV so that my daughter can groom round pen as well. I have my eye on a disc on Marketplace now too. Tiller would be useful but not much else use after this project.

 

[Dragonpharm]

I don't know anyone that has used the approach you describe. I think the main impact of different approaches is the percentage of time that the arena is usable.

We did tons of riding during my childhood on a level section of a field, which had zero prep work.

Anything outdoors will be unusable when the ground is frozen solid or covered in snow. Unless you have fantastic natural drainage, it will be unusable after heavy rains.

The more costly approaches can ensure the footing is to the rider's liking (not too hard, soft, deep, or shallow) and it can decrease the amount of time it's too wet.

I don't see anything wrong with trying the low-cost solution that you describe. Worst case, you may decide to use a more involved approach later.

If that happens, I recommend finding an experienced arena excavator in your area. This is a job where the cost of materials can be more substantial than the cost of labor, and you can waste a lot of material money on a faulty approach.

I have an excavator that has done a lot of work for me. Unfortunately he hasn't any experience with arenas, just typical excavation.

 

[Dragonpharm]

My first question is what kind of riding? Barrel racing is different from dressage, which is different from jumping or western pleasure, or training a young horse. Some horses are tougher than others, and more tolerant of imperfect footing. (Often due to conformation.)

If it were me, I would spring for the geotextile (it keeps your precious sand from disappearing into the soil), and if the budget permits, round 3/8" pea gravel for hoof soundness, if pea gravel isn't in the budget, washed sand works, too, just not too deep, and make sure it is free flowing. Builders sand is a non-starter. Avoiding any footing that sticks, or is too slick, with some cushioning is the goal. If you can set up the arena with a 1-2% grade perpendicular to the long axis, it will shed rain water faster, and be ready for use sooner.

I put French drains under geotextile and round pea gravel to convert my clay swap to an all weather riding arena (limited dressage, mostly schooling horses, and turn out). My only regret is not spreading lime (to stabilize the clay) and mixing it into the top six inches before compacting it; we had a few super clay spots that just plain liquified for the first two to three years before stabilizing.

All the best,

Peter

Mostly general training and some barrel training. My daughter has 2 quarter horses and an OTTB. She has decided the race horse needs to be a barrel horse. Probably one of the mares also if she can manage. Plus she has mammoth donkeys to train.

 

[WM75Guy]

Here is our arena drag. Red Master II 8' wide. It stays on the TC40DA.

 

[Dragonpharm]

Here is our arena drag. Red Master II 8' wide. It stays on the TC40DA.
View attachment 732827

View attachment 732828

Very nice! I'll look into that next.

 

[drssg]

I have an excavator that has done a lot of work for me. Unfortunately he hasn't any experience with arenas, just typical excavation.

You're going to get so much feedback, you'll be sorry you asked!

For my first iteration at building an arena, I used a good excavator who didn't have arena experience. I had read all about sub-base, base, footing, and slope recommendations.

I asked him to make a 6" base of crushed limestone, because that was the terminology used in my reading material.

I came home from work to find a nice 72' x 240' pad of 1" crusher run. It would have made a great parking lot, but I couldn't put sand footing on top of 1" stone. I should have specifically requested 1/8x0 stone.

I later tried to add a layer of 1/8x0 myself. It didn't sound that hard, but the more I worked on it, the worse it looked.

I finally hired an experienced arena guy. He came in with laser-integrated equipment and knocked it out like nothing. I generally like do-it-yourself projects, but I sure punted on this one.

 

[Hoodoo]

I'm doing the same with my new tractor. Had an double-fenced acre out back that was a mess, with pigweed and rocks. So far I've got out the weeds and rocks and used the gannon with scraper forks to get the furrows going. Of course this revealed more rocks, less in quantity, but bigger ones. So today I'll be going to get those out and drag it again. I'll set the forks a little higher...or might even use my harrow mat set with the most aggressive position.

Our dirt out here is a sandy/dirt mix and my plan is to get it all turned over and soft as possible and use it like that. Will it be as good as arena sand? Nope, but that's what the budget says it will be. And we're just going to use it for quick rides, training and lessons anyway. Our neighbors have a large ring that has sand and they love us using it.

 

[Dragonpharm]

I'm doing the same with my new tractor. Had an double-fenced acre out back that was a mess, with pigweed and rocks. So far I've got out the weeds and rocks and used the gannon with scraper forks to get the furrows going. Of course this revealed more rocks, less in quantity, but bigger ones. So today I'll be going to get those out and drag it again. I'll set the forks a little higher...or might even use my harrow mat set with the most aggressive position.

Our dirt out here is a sandy/dirt mix and my plan is to get it all turned over and soft as possible and use it like that. Will it be as good as arena sand? Nope, but that's what the budget says it will be. And we're just going to use it for quick rides, training and lessons anyway. Our neighbors have a large ring that has sand and they love us using it.

I might end up just leveling ours out and possibly having sand brought in once I find out how expensive that will be. I know there is a gravel pit nearby that actually donated sand for a local riding club so they should be able to sell me a decent sand instead of builders sand. My daughter already put barrels out this week and started working the horses slowly in the snow. She isn't the most patient but is very careful with her horses.

 

[riptides]

Just completed one a little while back. Ground prep was pretty simple, have mixture of clay bound soil under what was the top.

A little sand and a lot of "stone dust". Hardest part was positioning the rail road ties. And making sure the circumference matched the number of panels I had. LOL.

 

[TheMan419]

USEF has book called Under Foot. It does a great job of telling you how to do great footing.

We have an in door we use for dressage. Originally we just removed the top soil. We have very clay soil here. So we moved more soil in from our own property to get it to the leve we wanted and put sand on top. That did ok.

Then several years down the road we removed the sand. Added 4 inches of stone dust and compacted that with a roller compactor. Put the sand back in. HUGE difference. Much better riding surface. Turns out the sand "slides" over the clay. It does not over the stone dust. The clay base was laser leveled, then the stone dust was laser leveled.

This process took two guys with two skids, a laser and a roller about 15 working hours over 2 days to get done. All they do is arenas and they do it all over the country. Watching real professionals work is always so much fun.

Usually for out door arenas the complaint I hear for folks who just throw down sand is that you end up with a muddy mess as the sand migrates down and the soil migrates up. Not only do you need a barrier to prevent that you need one around the edges to prevent the sand from exfiltrating and spreading out. Your 80x150 arena will become 90x160 and so on over time (or whatever size you are building).

Do it right the first time or you will spend twice as much.

 

[ponytug]

+1 on learning to level an arena by eye. It is a learning curve, at least for me. I set me perimeter boards to match the slope to give me an eye line on the slope.

@Dragonpharm great idea on getting something your daughter can run to keep the arena I shape. It will help clean up after barrel runs, and give her control over the surface conditions. It sounds like she is going to be quite occupied with her equids.

All the best,

Peter