Best Drag for a Dressage Arena?

[Helicon]

What arena drag do you use and or like best for maintaining your dressage arena?

I was using the chain drag from Country manufacturing. I would like to get something that will reach into the corners with and that will preserve and groom my newly improved arena. I am rebuilding my outdoor dressage arena to the specs suggested in the USDF manual Under Foot. I have a 6 inch limestonedust base on top of my old base and it will be compacted to four inches. I plan to bring in about 1.5 to 2 inches of sand to put on top.

So far I like the looks of the Parma. I have looked into the TR3 but $4000? Yikes. A friend of mine has an Arenawerks that does a good job, but I am wondering if it might be more suited to the deeper footing you need for western riding. I would like to preserve my stonedust base and do not want to scrape my base unless it has become unlevel.

I have a medium-small sized Tractor.

I have already done a search but did not come up with much and especially am interested in hearing from dressage riders.

[inca]

I have a Riata Rake and it does a GREAT job. I love it! I don’t have a lovely base like you do and I also have the natural sand from our VERY sandy soil. When my arena is properly watered (hard to keep up with when it is 90 plus degrees every day!) and then harrowed, it is really nice, despite not spending the $$$ to do the whole base thing. I did let my arena sit for 6 months (my horses were living elsewhere) so it really settled naturally and so far, so good. Will see how it holds up this fall/winter, though.

Anyway, the Riata Rake (I have the trailed version that I pull with a Gator but they make a 3 point hitch version for a tractor) was $2,650, including freight.

[dressage_fan1]

My only experience is with the Parma versus a tow-behind chain drag. Parma is a good product. Adjustability is excellent and relatively easy to accomplish (be sure to mark your original settings though ). It stood up to daily (sometimes twice-daily) use for the three months that I used it at our rented farm with only one minor problem - a bolt in their “standard bolt package” broke off and we replaced it with one from Home Depot.

As for corners…I was able to back it in relatively close. There was about a one meter square in the corners that I couldn’t get to. In the end - and on recommendation of a footing expert - I just dragged the corners by hand and then raked the rest with the Parma. The corners get so much abuse that it’s good practice to get them by hand anyway.

My one and only gripe with the Parma was that it sometimes left a very minor groove on turns with a length-wise pattern. Because of the physics of the thing, the roller would not roll over the groove made by the outside tine on the rake in the turns. This was purely cosmetic…just something I always wondered about how to improve.

I was told they had an edge attachment so you could run the groomer against the side of a hard-edged arena without damaging it or the groomer.

If you’re near South Florida, there is a guy who I dealt with in Wellington who really knows his stuff and is a dealer. Feel free to PM me if you want name and contact info. He’s worked on a lot of commercial-installations and really nice private ones and gave me an incredible tutorial on how to use the Parma most effectively.

[QUOTE=Helicon;3265200]
What arena drag do you use and or like best for maintaining your dressage arena?

I was using the chain drag from Country manufacturing. I would like to get something that will reach into the corners with and that will preserve and groom my newly improved arena. I am rebuilding my outdoor dressage arena to the specs suggested in the USDF manual Under Foot. I have a 6 inch limestonedust base on top of my old base and it will be compacted to four inches. I plan to bring in about 1.5 to 2 inches of sand to put on top.

So far I like the looks of the Parma. I have looked into the TR3 but $4000? Yikes. A friend of mine has an Arenawerks that does a good job, but I am wondering if it might be more suited to the deeper footing you need for western riding. I would like to preserve my stonedust base and do not want to scrape my base unless it has become unlevel.

I have a medium-small sized Tractor.

I have already done a search but did not come up with much and especially am interested in hearing from dressage riders.[/QUOTE]

[candico]

I have a super arena guy and his pet peeve is people using too heavy duty rakes with teeth… because inevitably it starts to scrape up the base which winds up mixing up into the sand and not having a level surface for rainwater to sheet off of any longer. He did like the TR3 rake but admitted it was a bit complicated for some people.
Anyway, I do think a lot of those high priced drags are better for those deeper arenas where there is a lot of reworking to do where a well done dressage arena with just two inches of sand usually doesn’t need much unless you do a lot of lunging wild horses in it…
If you can lift your harrow/drag you can back it in to the corners then set it down and start raking - otherwise just have to do it by hand once in a while. I use just a chainlink fence attached to an old pipe gate for my permaflex dressage arena and for the deeper turnout/young horse arena I have the triangle shaped dragster which is nice because I can use it upside down to “seal” the ring or teeth down to level out the high and low spots without it being too aggressive. I did have the teeth filed down to be just over 2" so it would match the depth I wanted in the arenas. It kind of then catches the sand in places that are more than the 2" and deposits it once it gets to a low spot.
Once in a while I also have to fill in the rail ruts by hand to get it really “perfect”, but again if the arena is done right in the first place you’ll notice you have a lot less to fix both on maintenence of the arena itself and on your horses!

Hope that helps.

[yaya]

I got one of those Country (or maybe it was Farnam) drags about 15 years ago, and still have it, although it has gone through a few transformations.

It was two sections, each about 3 feet wide and 4 feet long, meant to be dragged one behind the other. But when pulling it behind the tractor, it would leave tire tracks from the tractor on the turns. So several years ago, I had a friend make a wider drag pole so I could drag them side by side, so it would cover the tractor tracks.

Then this year I decided I wanted something I could pick up, so I didn’t have to drag it everywhere, and so I could back up and get into the corners. So I priced frame harrows at the local farm supply, and figured $1200 was just too much (and that was for the smallest one), and you couldn’t change the position of the harrow part like you could the drag harrow to use either the flat side, the “deep teeth” direction, or the “shallow teeth” direction.

So I went to the local welding shop and had them make me a frame! Cost less than $600, and I made sure they made it so I could easily unhook the drag harrow part so I could flip it over, or hook it up backwards to change the teeth depth. Works like a charm! And best of all, with the three-point hitch, I can tighten or loosen the top connector to tilt the frame so the front bar smooths/flattens out the sand, then the teeth can “fluff it up” on top. Or tilt it so the teeth fluff first, then the back bar flattens. Depending on what I need.

So instead of buying something new, is there anyone around you who can make a frame for your harrow to fit your 3-point hitch?

[YankeeLawyer]

I have a Red Master and love it. But it is pricey. I also like my chain drag from Tractor Supply, but it is more for smoothing the surface than for doing any conditioning, and it does not get into the corners as well as the Red Master.

Regarding footing, I would be very careful about how much sand you add initially. I was advised to start by adding no more than 1 inch – but, I have 2 inches of loose bluestone over a bluestone base, so the sand would be mixing into some loose bluestone; it would not be the exclusive footing material. The base of my arena was made by compacting 6 inches of bluestone down to 4 inches. In any event, it is easier to add more sand than to remove any excess.

[Marieke]

the tr3 guys have a cheaper version, the arena***** (drwaing a blank here) which I JUST got earlier this week. You can adjust the teeth from 1 to 6 inches deep. I drag with an ATV and have started with the highest setting which was ok, then put it down 1 lower and it seems to do a really nice job. Will keep you posted on progress

[merrygoround]

I have a steel drag with teeth on one side, that can be flipped,(with a struggle) to the other side without teeth. It’s ancient, I now have no idea who made it, but it does a great job, and doesn’t need a tractor.

[horsegirltv]

I haven’t actually seen it in action yet but one of our sponsors (awesome folks BTW) have a new rake that is supposed to revolutionize dressage and show jumping arena drags on it’s level. I talked with my contact at ABI Equine and he was telling me that it’s pretty much IMPOSSIBLE for non-pro draggers to cut into the all important base with this.

I am almost 100% it’s called the Rascal and it can even be pulled behind an ATM for those of us without the luxury of a fancy John Deere! Their website is http://www.abiequine.com and they are really nice ppl plus they produce some good quality videos for our industry as well!

Hope that is helpful!

[Marieke]

[QUOTE=horsegirltv;3266256]

I am almost 100% it’s called the Rascal and it can even be pulled behind an ATM [/QUOTE]

that’s the one I have, so far I love it…

now if I can just find that ATM to drag it with

[Helicon]

Thanks everyone for sharing your personal experiences and for the brand name suggestions. So far we have votes for the ABI Arena Rascal (2), Parma, Red master and the Riata Rake. I will look into each of them.

It sounds like some folks are still using and happy with their chain drags so maybe I should re-evaluate mine as well. Yaya - the 3 point frame is an intriguing idea for the chain drag. I will talk to a welder about it.

[rebecca_yount]

I have an Arena Rascal and I love it (I have the tiny one to pull behind a gator) and my friend has a bigger one (I think it goes on a 3-point hitch) and she loves hers, too.

[FriesianX]

For those who have a pull behind (no 3 point hitch), I’m curious to hear if you’ve been using it for a while and still love it! We are also looking for a drag, and would prefer a simple pull behind because we only have ONE tractor, and doing/undoing the 3 point is a PITA.

We tried the pull behind Red Harrow mini - it seemed wonderful for a while, but within a month or two, I had terrible humps and bumps in the arena. The Mini bounces when it hits a small “high spot”, and creates a bigger high spot, and what starts as a quarter inch of deeper sand ends up being 4 inches, and eventually even ruins the base! With a 3 point, obviously the tractor eliminates that bumping, but after talking to a guy who repairs a lot of arenas, he said he’s seen that effect many times.

So, curious, has anyone used the pull behinds long enough to know they aren’t running into that problem? We are currently using a chain drag, keeps everything level, but it means going out every couple of months with the box scraper to loosen up the sand - the chains only reach about 1/2 to 1 inch, and the rest packs down!

I find, I need about 2 inches of sand worked up to have the right give and cush for the horse.

[YankeeLawyer]

[QUOTE=FriesianX;3271231]

We tried the pull behind Red Harrow mini - it seemed wonderful for a while, but within a month or two, I had terrible humps and bumps in the arena. The Mini bounces when it hits a small “high spot”, and creates a bigger high spot, and what starts as a quarter inch of deeper sand ends up being 4 inches, and eventually even ruins the base! With a 3 point, obviously the tractor eliminates that bumping, but after talking to a guy who repairs a lot of arenas, he said he’s seen that effect many times.
.[/QUOTE]

The mini red master harrow does not do that unless you go too fast. You have to go slowly with that particular drag. It weighs something like 600 pounds; it simply does not bounce very easily.
I have had mine for 2 years and it works beautifully. But I am also careful to make sure the tines and blade are adjusted to suit my ring and I go slowly (e.g., 2 mph on my ATV). I can go twice as fast with my chain drag, but with the little red you do have to go slowly.
This is a non-issue with the bigger red master, which requires a tractor and 3-point hitch.