Arena surface

[chickflick1066]

What arena surface do you have and what do you think of it?

Is it grass? Plain sand? Sand and rubber?

[~*sugarlump*~]

my rs has a peat type surface, its very soft and i think its easy to upkeep. the only bad thing is that if you have a lot of horses cantering, then it does tend to get slightly dusty

[holiday]

We have sand with rubber on top it is brill!!! The drains are fantastic so it never floods and in the heat the rubber prevents the dust!!

[jUmPingIsLifE]

at home i have grass. i like it because it doesn't get dusty like sand. it is a harder ground however as long as you dont just go galloping and jumping around on it on an unfit horse and you work your way up in the long run it makes the horses legs stronger.

at school we have Rubber footing. although its great for horses legs, i would be scared to take them to a show to really show them. the rubber is SO nice and if we were to take some of our horses to a show with grass arenas adn harder ground i could see a lot of them comming up lame on it. that is the problem with working on nice footing like that. but for some of our schoolies that have problems with their legs its really nice for them and helps keep htem sound and happy.

[chickflick1066]

Our indoor school is building sand with a mix of mud?! It's new surface will be siliconed sand with an overhead water system.

Outdoor school is wood-chippings. We get them free which is lucky. Surprisingly springy and the horses don't trip - at all!

[nirikina]

The outdoor school used to be muddy sand, it would get horribly rutted, turn into a lake when it rained, and freeze solid half of winter. I left the yard for a year and have just gone back, to witness it being renovated. It's now rubber/sand mix which is lovely to work on, doesn't churn up, doesn't freeze over, and they've improved the drainage too. I would guess it's softer to land on if you fall. What more could I ask for?

[Jacquie]

Mines bark free woodfibre - a great surface for if your prone to hitting the deck, it's like landing on a mattress. :D

[Shadowlark]

Sand and clean shavings at ours - more shavings then anything tho, it's very soft and easy to maintain. As the shavings get worked in they end up like sand.. hmm I guess one could say we are riding on saw dust!

[Izod1360]

our is dirt with rubber in it. we get the rubber from old tires! its very nice. and our 2 outdoor ones have sand.

[Bay Mare]

Sand and rubber. It's great and has stood up really well through the winter.

We previously had wood chip which was absolutelybloodyawful :( I wouldn't, by choice, ride on wood chip again.

I've ridden on a 'sand' (it was the particle stuff with coloured bits of 'sand' mixed in) arena and it was nice too, great to fall off on :)

[xXSundanceBayXx]

ours was shavings, but now its really thin and dusty, so were relaying ut bits at a time. and our outdoor area is grass

[Styric]

Sand :)

Indoor arena:

http://styric.no-ip.org/images/rattingaround/pictures/arena.jpg

Outdoor ring:

http://styric.no-ip.org/images/practiceride/pictures/IMGP0427.JPG

[Mehitabel]

we've got 2 woodchip schools and one sand and rubber one. the woodchip ones are fine, although they take a fair bit of maintenance. luckily we have the hands to do it and Mr YM is a tree surgeon, so we can get the woodchips for them with no trouble.

[Jessey]

We have sand, on sandy soil (no real base) and it just gets deeper and deeper, outside we just ride in the fields so its grass but as the whole area is sand soil it turns to sand in no time.
Used to have grass on clay and that was terrible, just a boggy mess and in summer it was all rutty and nasty.
Used to have sand and rubber at another place which was really nice, still needed a bit of maintainence but good surface, cost a fair bit to top it up with rubber periodically.

J x

[tbtess]

Our arena is sand and rubber. Really nice underfoot. We need some more rubber at the moment though, the rubber is slowly getting buried under the sand!

[iloveshearer]

ours is mud in winter and grass in summer!!!!!

[chickflick1066]

We previously had wood chip which was absolutelybloodyawful :( I wouldn't, by choice, ride on wood chip again.

What don't you like about it BayMare?

[Bay Mare]

How it mulches down over time especially in bad weather. How it can get slippery as it mulches down. I have been spoiled by sand and sand/rubber schools in the past so woodchip was a huge come down for me. It's also not as 'comfortable' to land on. It isn't that it was badly maintained because it wasn't but our school is fairly open to the elements (great views) so was probably worse off with wood chip than a lot of schools would be.

A lot of horses at our yard went a lot better when the school was redone with rubber and sand.

[chickflick1066]

Thanks for the response BayMare :)

[Jacquie]

Thanks for the response BayMare :)
Although BayMare is right about woodchip, don't confuse this type of surface with a woodfibre one.

Woodchip has bark included in which causes the surface to become slippy in the wet and freeze in the winter. You also find with this type of surface the size of the chips are to large and wedge in the horses feet.

I did a lot of research on the different types of riding surfaces before opting for the Ransfords equestrian woodfibre product. This surface is easily maintained (I only have to roll it once a week) and it's guaranteed to be bark free and not freeze in the winter - it also has a longer lifespan than many other surfaces because it's produced with new wood rather than recycled.

If anyone is considering having an arena or round pen constructed I'd highly recommend this surface. :)

[chickflick1066]

Well I'm not sure what ours is - probably the bad stuff. I rode in it this morning - after a lot of rain last night and Stumpy seemed fine, no slipping etc. The surface has like fern tree clipppings, a bizarre surface. I'll have to take a picture so you can see.

YO asked around local tree surgeons I guess and she gets excess chippings for free.

[Mehitabel]

i find woodchips fine most of the time., they do mulch down and need topping up and digging down, and yes they do freeze in winter and get slippery in the rain. they're definitely not as nice as sand/rubber - but a fraction of the cost, and certainly doable if you don;t have the many thousands needed to have the school done in subber. i was amazed at how expensive it was when we had our sand school redone in rubber.

[eventerbabe]

i just have grass ;) school at our old yard was some crappy mix of what i think was peat and wood chips. was far too deep and they hadn't laid a proper base so it never drained properly. arena on previous yard was sand and was great, apart from freezing in the winter. nicest surface i've ridden on was a mix of peat and chopped up tyres. felt very springy and was great for jumping on.

[Lgd]

We have white silica sand. The arena isn't finished yet but it has stayed rideable apart from when it was covered in 4" of snow and it finally froze when the temps got down to -7, which is pretty good.

[Trewsers]

We have bark outdoors and bark indoors, indoors gets a bit dusty though, if lots of people have been in.

[danielle:>]

At my RS it is rubber pieces in both the indoor and outdoor school. It's pretty good, but the outdoor gets flooded really badly in the corners if it has been raining, which is a pain.
At the yard my share pony is stabled at, the sign says it is woodgrain. It just looks like sand to me. It drains well with the rain, but when it gets cold after it has been raining, the whole surface freezes and takes ages to defrost. You can't ride cause it all gets balled up in the horses feet :( .

[Rips]

Love woodchip, its so soft to land in! I don't think ours ever froze or was slippy :confused:
I hate sand! Its so dirty and turns to slop in winter, dusty in summer...

[flintyboy]

We have sand as you know minty! its so pooey and annoying! and its still as sinky as it has always been :(

[Lora]

>> What arena surface do you have and what do you think of it?

I think it's dirt mixed with sand and wood chips or something.. All I know is it's SUPER cushy soft when you fall. :D The dirt does tend to track all over the barn when we walk out though. :)

The arena is safe, warm and ideal and just the right size for one person and thier horse to run paces. You can do two, maybe up to three but it might feel crowded.