I am soon going bulid a arena. I lightly jump and do alot of flatwork. I was wondering what size outdoor arena I should have? Help PLEASE!
As big as you can get it.
It depends on a lot of factors - but really, Iāve never heard someone complain their arena was too large. Because I show dressage, when we put in our arena I insisted that it be at least 200ā long (a standard dressage arena is just under 200ā) then we made it as wide as the spot we picked allowed, which is mostly around 170ā with a corner cut off for the driveway.
How many people are going to be riding at once? I like something wider than a 20m circle (which is 66ā) but thatās plenty wide for just one person, depending. I think 150āx200ā is an awesome size if space and fencing needs allow. But it depends on useā¦
As big as you can afford.
At the max Iād think 3 horses at once. what would a minimum size for a arena be? Thanks for your help!
three horses? and jumping? Iād have to say 100 by 200, preferably 150 x 200.
Go ride in your favorite arena and if you donāt know how big it is, walk it and find out.
My āhomeā arena is 125ā by 68ā : thatās all we could manage given our roly poly land. I can school low level dressage, and pop over cavaletti, but nothing crazy. And itās tooooo small to teach a young horse how to canter - they get worried about so many turns so quickly.
Thanks:)
Hard to know if this is a real post or not. 
Looks spammyā¦
To answer your question, how much money ya got? If I could have afforded it, I would have put in 100x200. But it would have been extremely expensive given my native soil (very heavy clay) so I only have 80x100.
Honestly, though, ā¦you look like spam. What size arena do you currently ride in?
Iām not sure the exact measurements of the one I currently ride in, itās fairly small, as i only did light work and trail riding. I am currently learning how to jump at a different stable in which I bring my horses to for lessons. I want a larger arena to jump in, I needed opinons on sizing, since there arenāt many stables around here, and I canāt judge by my current one since itās much too small.:sadsmile:
Hereās a link for you http://www.stablewise.com/faq/00036.html that discusses sizes for various disciplines.
Note that if you have a really big arena you can always subdivide it down, but a nice big arena is EXPENSIVE.
We have a 140 x 250 arena and it is a wonderful size!
If you want to be able to set up a line of jumps across the diagonal youāll need a minimum of 100 feet wide. My home arena is 100ā by 210ā and I wouldnāt want it any smaller.
Thank you everyone! I am probally going to bulid much bigger than I first immagined:lol:
Dear Horselover3,
Please do yourself a favor before breaking ground and purchase the USDF booklet āUnderfootā. This $15 or so booklet will provide you with a lot of basic information regarding the proper construction of an arenaā¦drainage, materials and drainage pitches. The smallest arena would be approximately 20 meters by 40 metersā¦smaller than that would be really a waste of time and money especially if looking to do some stadium jumping too. Also understand that good arena fill costs a lot: every inch of elevation in a 100x200 foot arena means three 14 yard dump trucks at about $250 per load minimum depending upon the material on board and how far the nearest quarry is. And I can tell you from experience how truly non-flat a nice arena location can be. Be careful too with your excavator choice: their favorite trick is to over excavateā¦why take out 10 truckloads of loam and topsoil when you can remove 50-75 and get paid to replace the new hole with fill you then truck back in?
Having said that a great outdoor arena is just thatā¦great!
I was only able to get my arena 85ā x 200ā and my daughter is an avid hunter/jumper and it is more than fine.
Dalemma
I think the width is more important then the length. As a dressage rider I wanted a true 20 metre widthā¦we went with a 72 x 140 whichi is just perfect for 3 riders. Two of my boarders are hunters and 4 fences is about all we can comfortably put in there and still make a decent courseā¦but it works just fine for us.
My friend up the road just put up a 60 x 120 and is thrilled with that size. In my day that was the standard size arena even with 7 or 8 horses in a lesson. I guess its what you get used toā¦
Agree with others. Iād try to have something about 150 x 250.
My home arena is 100 x 225 and I wish it was slightly wider.
So Iād say āminimumā is 100 x 200
You canāt set up a full jump course with nice lines AND and plenty of room to do flatwork if you squeeze yourself into something much smaller.
If you were JUST doing dressage/flatting and JUST wanted a jump or two in there, you CAN go smallerā¦but why would you want to? 
We went with what the ground allowed us, so it is about 90ā x 300ā. We really like the size, which allows galloping and not so much constant turning. Helps get a horse and rider fit! Galloping is hard work to ride or drive, but must be part of a horseās basic education for control. Our horses say āGalloping is fun, whee! Can we stop now? PLEASE?ā Easy to go or slow down without an argument anyplace because they do it often. NOT exciting, just part of the job.
For the riding, we can still have two good sized rings if we split it between us, or husband uses the whole space when driving the Four. Does allow more options when setting up jump courses, horse has enough room to easily change lines and use the fences in various ways.
Bigger is better. The booklet is a good idea, you donāt want to get your footing wrong or too deep to injure your horses. Building in layers does work the best.
Our ring is open sided, no close fences so horses HAVE to work by direction, not off the fence. Rider MUST be driving, or horse wonāt stay in the ring! We have ditches around the sides of the field, which is a big help in draining the footing as quickly as possible. We donāt have deep footing on purpose, but it may be deeper if very wet. Horse canāt expect perfect all the time!! Also makes a nice sacrifice area in winter, with dry areas to stand on when everything else is mud.
I would like to know what size arena I would need to host a radio and or team roping events I was told 150āx250ā is this what size itvwill take?
Rodeo not Radio lol
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Indoor, covered or outside arena?
Team roping is what demands the bigger arena, so use roping dimensions if that is part of your events.
You can contest rope in any size arena, but the larger ones are better for general roping and training.
In the longer arenas, you have the option of not hurrying your horse so much, or hurrying if you want to.
In a too small arena, think NFR, the pressure is higher because of the small arena.
You donāt have much room to catch.
The lenght is more important than the width, 250ā long would be nice, outdoor arenas tend to be 300ā.
Since many ropers like to stand waiting their turn by the boxes, wider is better than too narrow.
Also consider if you will have the return alley inside or outside.
Figure a minimum of 6ā wide for it and maximum of 10ā and that is really too wide, steers will run back on the less experienced riders bringing the steers up the arena if it is too wide.
Be sure to get roping boxes the proper dimensions and place them in the right side of the arena, generally the heeler box some 18ā to 20ā from the right arena fence.
They tend to take a good 20ā off the end of the lenght of the arena.
Also, will you run the smaller or larger barrel racing pattern?
120ā wide will give you the shorter pattern, 150ā the larger one.
Of course you will adapt the pattern size to whatever arena size you have.
Then, our local little rodeo in the nearby town has only a 180ā x 90ā arena and we make it, but is sure not good for regular rodeos, just jackpot type and playdays.
Ideal would be 300ā x 150ā, is what our outside and most county arenas are.
I would go around your area measuring arenas and asking questions, then decide what would work best for what people in your area are used to.
