Sorry, a little off topic…Bluey, I was thinking about this the other day. In areas like the PNW, or anywhere that gets a lot of precipitation, wouldn’t it be easier and more fail-safe to use concrete as a sub-base? You hear horror stories of horses punching though when it’s too wet which would be a non-issue with a concrete sub-base and I would imagine if you topped it with a few inches of screenings as a base, and then your footing, it would have the same amount of cushion/shock absorption as a properly compacted sub-base. And, if the concrete was poured to have a bit of a slope it would drain beautifully. Does it come down to cost or am I not thinking of something?
I would not know, just know adding footing over the concrete has worked for my friend for years now.
He raises, starts, trains, competes and then uses his horses their whole life, hard at times and they stay sound until old age.
I know those horses are not hurt by what he does, their longivity proves that.
It makes sense that if using a concrete base, like he had to, is what he had for bad weather, he also has a larger 150’ diameter deep sand cutting training pen right outside, if that worked for him, if a person is sensible in what they use as footing and how they ride and train, horses should do fine.
I wonder if it may not be cheaper to just pay for riding in a local, well kept proper riding arena for those that only have a horse or two to train and keep fit?
There are convention centers with concrete bottoms where they have basketball games, ice hockey, indoor soccer and then add dirt for off road motorcross and dune buggy competitions, take that out and add the right footing for horses and hold rodeos and horse shows too.
@SugarCubes I would guess its due to the added cost of pouring concrete. Granted my BF had them add Rebar to the flooring, but it was $10,000 just for the concrete. Now it is a beautiful job and so far since it was finished in October we haven’t had a single crack. So i’m sure it could be done cheaper, but I would assume its much more expensive than a compacted base. Also I think to many the idea of putting footing over concrete seems like it would be too hard on the horses legs, but it sounds like if you do it right it could work.
@Bluey Sadly the barn was built specifically for the hay equipment, tractors and the 3 horse LQ Trailer. Which need to stay inside in our Michigan winters.
But I’m starting to think could i could definitely figure out easy to be happier in a smaller than average arena if/ when it comes to that… but we may see about trying to write it off an indoor, as we do raise cattle and we could use an pole barn that is the size of an arena to store round bales…
I have a friend with a poured asphalt base. It is very stable. Around here it was done without the county knowing because that many sq feet of impermeable surface would have triggered a full scale drainage review.
