Arena Boards

[taylorelaine]

We just installed 2x6 boards around our arena to keep the sand in. Do they seem high enough to do that? I know it’s too late to ask, having an arena is new to us and I feel like we’re just winging it, but I want to make sure everything is safe first off and that it’ll hold the sand and drain properly during heavy rains. I’m worried about not having a fence and just only the boards. Is that okay, or could that be dangerous. I’m worried about not being able to see the boards when riding if they’re covered by sand and hitting them. Do they seem safe as they are now, I’m not really sure what to do. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I sort of feel like I don’t know what I’m doing and I don’t know if I’m doing it right. This is a picture of our arena boards now. (The arena hasn’t been dragged yet)

I would love to do this, but I think my dad said it would be too costly, maybe in the future.

My dad was thinking something like this above the boards, I feel like it doesn’t look very pretty, but if it’s a safe solution then that’s all I care about.

[HeartsDesireEventing]

I am using electric fence around my arena at the moment - like you, it’s intended to be temporary until we get around to doing permanent wood fencing. I think it would serve your purpose of identifying the visual boundary/edge of the arena to help avoid an accidental step out/onto the board.

[Willesdon]

Don’t worry. Your job is steering the horse so no need to worry about falling out of the arena. It is nice to have a fence or a hedge or fancy white dressage boards but actually it can be advantageous not to have a physical structure to “lean on”. It will help you to ride straight, the foundation of much of our riding skill.

[trubandloki]

Step in posts with electric tape (not charged) should work perfectly for a simple visual barrier while riding if you are worried about stepping on the boards.

[Night_Flight]

Do you have a lot of downed trees nearby that could be dragged over? I’ve never been worried riding in outdoor rings that just had narrow logs holding the sand in, since it’s a wider surface for the horse to either be aware of or to step on without twisting a leg. If you have some logs or something similar available, you could push them up against your existing boards along the outside of the ring.

[mmeqcenter]

I prefer a ring without fence, but I agree with the poster on your other thread that this particular edging is more of a safety issue than others. Normally people use something like a big large railroad tie (6x6 or 8x8 usually) which is much more substantial and would take the whole hoof if the horse did get a little silly and a foot falls on the edge of the ring.

Until you can afford a beefier edging, or post-and-rail, I think the step-in-posts and fence tape is a good visual help to prevent accidental ankle twisting.

[LCDR]

One of my horses got zapped once about five years ago by electric fence tape. He absolutely refuses, to this day, to get close to any fence tape, regardless of where it is or the color of the tape, charged or uncharged.

[taylorelaine]

Thanks for the responses!

I wish we would’ve done the railroad ties, that seemed like the better and safer option. I’m going to be jumping in the arena as well, so that makes me worry more about the board. I’m starting to wonder if we even really needed the boards at all. We live in South Florida, and I was told that one bad rain without them and we’d lose a lot. Are boards important, and should we have put them in?

Last week, we had a really bad rainstorm that didn’t stop for 24 hours. When I went to check on the arena the next day, everything looked like it had drained really well, and we didn’t lose anything. However, when I went over to the far side—the side the arena is slanted towards—I found a section where the water must have gathered and washed away some sand and a little bit of the base. You can see in the pictures that the wood is completely visible, and there’s a small gap underneath where the water must have pushed through and drained out.

I know the outside of that side of the arena isn’t built up very well. It’s about 10 feet from the swale, so everything starts to slope gradually at that point. My dad has already started working on building up the outside of the arena there. He’s begun with base material—I think paver base—and has stamped and compacted it really well, making it tight everywhere. Then, he’s going to add regular fill, building it up right to the arena boards at the slope, and then plant grass on top.

Again, I’m not sure if we’re doing any of this right, so any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated. I don’t want this to happen after every bad rain, especially since we get a lot of that here. The rest of the arena drained and held up great—just not in that one spot, unfortunately. The boards were supposed to help prevent this, so were they even worth putting in? In the last picture you can see how close we are to the swale — I wish we could’ve put the arena further from it, but it was the only available space we had.

[taylorelaine]

Here’s the progress made so far.

[Demerara_Stables]

I have 6x6s around my arena and no fence. You know where they are because there is grass on the outside. The only downside to not having a full fence is that you can’t turn the horses loose inside the arena but you wouldn’t be able to do that with a short fence anyway.

ETA after reading your last post: you need to put some sort of drain and catch basin at the low point for the water to drain out but keep the sand in. I don’t know the exact solution but I know you need it because I’m having the exact problem you are with my arena. I’d look into hiring a contractor that works on landscaping and drainage and see if they’ll come to do the drain. I’ve lost a LOT of sand out of my arena because the builder didn’t put proper drainage in. The problem you had after the rain will continue until you get it fixed correctly, and unfortunately just compacting the sand won’t do it.

[LCDR]

In my experience initially grading my dressage arena, I obviously did not have it totally level and evenly pitched to the downhill corner, despite use of a laser level. But with using my arena groomer almost daily, it slowly moved sand and corrected my errors and my arena now is level and drains well. It took a year of grooming to do that. It just slowly got better and better.

The folks advising hiring a contractor to correct your initial arena drainage problems probably missed the part about your dad constructing the arena for you.

I say “give Dad a chance.” It looks like he is trying his best to fix things and I’ll bet he is disappointed at this point. Do not hire anyone now unless Dad initiates the plan.

[taylorelaine]

Thanks so much again for the responses Yeah, my dad is really trying his best and doing a lot of research on ways to help fix the problem. He was definitely disappointed when that happened, but he’s been doing a great job of staying positive and moving forward to find a solution.

I forgot to mention that our arena was professionally done by a contractor. However, my dad was very involved in the process and installed most of the wood boards himself. It was laser-leveled and pitched to the outside, which is where we are having the problem. We didn’t do a crown in the middle because the arena is right next to the side of the house. Everything is designed to pitch away from the house and toward the swale.

We have crushed coquina as the base and natural sand on top. We dug the boards about four inches deep, with one inch of that going into the base. We haven’t dragged it yet either, so I’m sure that will help a lot over time.

I’m just so worried about hurricane season here in Florida. I know that with heavy rain, sometimes there’s not much you can do, but I’d like to at least know we did everything possible to equip our arena to handle it better in the future.

[mmeqcenter]

Washout is a very common problem you can probably search COTH threads and find dozens of them with some great ideas of how to fix it.

[Libera]

I had an area where it washes out too, it’s from the water building up speed and taking the sand with it.
We added coarse drainrock on the outside to slow the water down and it no longer washes out!
The rock still lets the water out though, so I don’t end up with a puddle. You do have to give the water a way out