We are putting in an outdoor riding ring (120 x 80) and need to get a tool to drag the arena. This is an arena for personal use (1 rider/3 horses). We have a small Massey Ferguson (25 hp) tractor. We’re thinking about either a drag harrow or a York rake. I’m interested in thoughts from people. What tool do you use? What seems to work best? Thanks.
I have a spring tooth harrow --it has different depth settings --works for our arena.
The Arena Rascal is great & comes in all different sizes.
I’ve used a Arena Rascal on my 100 x 200 sand arena for almost 10 years. Great product. No complaints.
I have a 100 x 200 ring, sand with bluestone base. I bought a ring dragger from the local co-op for about $350. It works great for me. I pull it with my four-wheeler and for not a lot of money it does the job nicely.
Can you describe it or post a photo?
I think it depends on what you are dragging your ring with. When we used our 4 wheeler, a simple diamond harrow worked fine. Once we started to use a tractor, it just wasnt cutting it.
We had a “fixed” type of harrow with teeth and a blade like this one:https://systemequine.com/for-your-pr…ng-conditioner but it was terrible for our outdoor ring. If you had any little hill or bump, it will make it worse and worse (as the front end of the tractor would go down the little incline and the harrow would do the opposite and just pretty much dig little “holes” everywhere).
We went with a Reist harrow and it has been amazing for our sand ring. We were told that it would only work on fibre footing, but its perfect for our plain sand ring and we’ve been using it for a couple of years now. https://www.reistindustries.com/prod/multigroomer.php
Our ring is about 80 x 160 and just sand. We drive and jump in it but only dig down about 2" or so. Not too deep by any means but perfect for driving and jumping ponies.
What is the footing/surface? I have a mixed sand/fiber arena and use a DragNFly. It has a combination of teeth and rollers; I love it but that is a product meant for that type of surface. If your arena has a different surface you may well need an entirely different type of drag.
Mine looks like a chain-linked fence turned upside. Not fancy in any way.
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/concord-6-ft-drag-harrow
The surface is a sand/clay mix (75/25)
