will a 25hp riding lawn mower sufficiently pull an Arena Rascal Pro? The manufacturer tells me no I’ll need an ATV; however, my neighbor pulls one with her riding lawn mower that is less hp.
Could you ask your neighbor if you may try to pull hers?
Then you would know if it does or not.
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She uses her’s all the time towing it with her riding mower, I watch her doing her arena, I live right next door, I see how it does, it works just fine. Dealer wasn’t even interested in selling me one if I didn’t have an ATV or bigger.
I love my Rascal Pro, and pull it with a JD 1025 compact tractor, which is 25 hp. The tractor has wide flat turf tires. I am one of those zen garden arena-draggers. It’s a pleasure dragging the arena with that equipment, and a delight to ride in after it’s dragged.
Not sure how my tracto’rs pulling power translates to 25 hp in the riding mower world. I would think torque, weight, tires, and other factors would be significant too in pulling power.
The Rascal Pro comes with ripper teeth, a comb, and a profile blade. You do not have to use them all. The teeth or the blade are optional to use in front of the comb. You can leave off the teeth and you can leave off the blade. My arena is new and the base is perfect, so I just leave the teeth and the blade off, and use the comb. The comb is adjustable to be more or less aggressive into the sand.
With my tractor, I adjust the comb to dig about 1" into the sand. I don’t like deep footing and that’s all I need. It’s a private arena.
IMO, you might be able to pull the Rascal along behind you with a riding mower, but I doubt you could go very deep with the comb. I don’t think I’d want to use the teeth or the blade with it either.
So, if your neighbor pulls one I guess you could too, but your features would be so underused. Ask your neighbor if she is only using the comb, and how deep.
I bought the smallest arena drag from Premier a few years ago and bought the attachment so I didn’t need a 3 point hitch. I have a 25hp Husqvarna mower/ garden tractor that I was planning on using since I was told it would work. And the specs for the drag said it would work.
In the meanwhile I bought a subcompact tractor that I use with the arena drag. The drag just looks too big and heavy for the mower/ garden tractor so I have not attempted to see if it works using that. Supposedly it will work. I am not brave enough to try and risk tearing something up. It would be easier to use than unhitching the tractor from the manure spreader. I am waiting for somebody else to say that it works first.
Any suggestions on a suitable arena drag that would work?
I watched my neighbor this morning and I have to admit the drag doesn’t dig down optimally but it does enough to make using it worth while, she has had her’s for a few years. She has no issues pulling it with her craftsman mower that is smaller their our Husqvarna.
Could you not drive yours there and drag her arena with yours enough to see if it would work?
Yes , she told me to use it when I want, just hate to borrow people’s things but I could try it out.
No need to borrow it, just drive over and hook up and see what happens.
It really depends on how well you want your footing worked. And how deep. We just got our Arena Rascal Pro and my arena really needed a work over (hence why I bit the bullet and spent the $$$$$). You definitely need some power to work it if you want it really worked, instead of just working the surface. We bought the 5.5’ and use a 500cc Polaris Ranger to tow it. That Polaris was working to get through it when the profile blade was on while doing the initial stages of loosening everything up.
I have an arena rascal and when I first got it I tried using it with my 21hp lawn tractor on my sand arena. It was a no go, especially turning. lawn tractor would just get stuck in the sand. My ring is a solid base with 3" of sand on top. Only ever use the comb and not the ripping teeth. I turned those up so no chance of them ever touching the arena footing.
I used my atv for awhile but eventually bought the three point hitch accessory so I could use it on my utility tractor and have been so much happier.
We don’t have Arena Rascal. We have TR3. If Arena Rascal is anything similar to TR3, I can’t imagine how a lawn tractor can handle it. If you still want to experiment with it, just be careful. You don’t want your lawn tractor stuck in your arena, and the wheels spinning to dig into your arena base. You will also want a contingency plan, as to how to remove your Arena Rascal from your arena. If that lawn tractor can’t handle it, the groomer is stuck in your arena for good until you can get a real tractor to get it out.
Or pull it out with the pickup.
Pickup. Yeap. That is one option, as the last resort I guess. I imagine, as there is no good way of hitching the groomer to the pickup on the ground level, the far end of the groomer will dig in the base when dragging it through arena with pickup. Maybe pickup at one end, and burly men on the other ;)…
Use a short chain so the drag stays level, don’t hook at bumper height.
The arena rascal is smaller than the TR3. It’s meant to be pulled with an atv or gator.
That said we use one with our 570cc Polaris and I wouldn’t want to use it with any less.
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I used to pull my chain drag with my zero turn. When I bought a bigger zero turn I was told that altho it is rated to pull 500 #, that is meant to be something with wheels, and the drag on the motor would damage the tranny of the mower… Now I use an old JD Gator.
