Arena footing

[uwharrie]

Our arena/ring is almost complete. It will be 140 x 80. Now to come up with some sort of footing. I know coarse sand or washed screenings are best but at this point a bit out of budget.

Has anyone used wood chips? We will be using the ring for driving as well as halther obstacles and jumping. My thoughts are to have grass in the middle and do a path of wood chips around the fence line.

 

[alphahorses]

I've ridden in an arena with woodchips mixed with sand. It doesn't get as dry as a sand arena, but the chips would occasionally get caught in shoes until the chips had broken down a bit.

I know someone who spreads their stall cleanings on a path, then rakes it, and drives on it. It is a very large % of wood shavings. I've driven on that, and it seemed to work well. The arena is higher than the surrounding ground, so it has good drainage.

If you use chips, be careful to check what is in them. For example, if you end up with walnut chips, you could founder your horse. Around here, buying wood chips that I can be sure don't have anything poisonous in them would cost more than sand.

 

[Annabellarose]

A lot of people in my area of the country use something called Class I sand for their riding arena and riding track surfaces. There are a lot of Tennessee Walking Horse/Racking Horse/Spotted Saddle Horse people in my area of the country and most of them seem to only build tracks to ride on. Most of the people that I have talked to have gotten it at places that mix concrete commercially. It is a larger grain than "play sand" (or beach sand), but it is a much smaller grain than pea gravel. It is usually $5-$10 a pickup truckload in my area.

Our neighbor at the farm built an outdoor riding arena (it is literally big enough to hold shows at) for their two daughters who ride hunt seat and do a little jumping and they used Class I sand for the surface (hard packed clay, native soil, underneath). I haven't ridden or driven in it yet myself, but, when I watch them ride, it looks like it is a very nice riding surface (it looks like it really "softens" the impact on the clay that is underneath). I have noticed that it drains quickly too!

 

[LAminiatures]

I use sawdust, stone dust , and sand mixed. It drains well and not super dusty.

 

[Riverrose28]

We had just sand in our indoor and it would get so dusty I would need to water it down between working horses. Last month we mixed in shredded pine mulch we bought at Lowes in the garden dept. (The employee thought we were getting an early start on spring) It really keeps the dust level down and the horses don't seem to mind, although one of my colts did try to eat it.