Building outdoor arena yourself

[costco_muffins]

@btswass

Do you notice the slope at all?

Our arena is vaguely egg shaped. It is 150’ down the long side, but about 62’ on one short side and 75’ on the other. Instead of making the whole thing narrow, we opted to make the best of the weirdness and give ourselves a little extra space. The only time I notice the slope is going downhill, into the shorter short side, in an unbalanced canter. Jumping downhill can be tricky too, but I like it for helping me require a balanced, organized ride. Sometimes my young horse protests, however…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BfEOhmegA9l/?taken-by=sharkeyfarm

But most of the time it rides very easily.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZRE_iBATAu/?taken-by=sharkeyfarm

I usually set grids and lines going uphill and singles downhill but I think that is habit more than anything else.

[Jim_in_PA]

@btswass

We have a Kubota BX25 and I was successfully able to level the area where I put the round pen. !

As a long time owner of a BX-22, which is your machine’s predecessor, I’m going to suggest you do not have enough machine to successfully excavate down to the subsoil to properly install an arena yourself. You only have a little more than 400 lbs of lifting power on the FEL and don’t particularly have a huge amount of digging power, even if you put a tooth bar on the FEL. You may be able to do a simple area to ride in, but you’ll not have the benefits of removing all the organics (top soil and so forth) and grading for drainage on the sub-soil before putting in your compacted sub-base. Moving that much material, while it can be done, will be painfully slow and very hard on your machine. I love my BX-22 and literally work it very hard, but I’d rent something much larger for this particular kind of job. Your BX-25 is perfect for maintaining your arena after it’s in, but…

[btswass]

@Jim_in_PA

As a long time owner of a BX-22, which is your machine’s predecessor, I’m going to suggest you do not have enough machine to successfully excavate down to the subsoil to properly install an arena yourself. You only have a little more than 400 lbs of lifting power on the FEL and don’t particularly have a huge amount of digging power, even if you put a tooth bar on the FEL. You may be able to do a simple area to ride in, but you’ll not have the benefits of removing all the organics (top soil and so forth) and grading for drainage on the sub-soil before putting in your compacted sub-base. Moving that much material, while it can be done, will be painfully slow and very hard on your machine. I love my BX-22 and literally work it very hard, but I’d rent something much larger for this particular kind of job. Your BX-25 is perfect for maintaining your arena after it’s in, but…

Yea…so we have a plow for the 3 point hitch and I went out there last week after 3 days of mid 50s and sun. I wanted to plow the outline (where not along the fence) since I was worried the coming snow would ruin the marking paint. Well the higher end of the slop worked fine and then when I tried to go down the slope toward the fence side I got completely stuck in the mud…took me a good few minutes to get out. So doing this myself is definitely out of the question. At least the excavation part. I think I can handle spreading material if someone else excavates. If it is even worth the saving in money. Ah well at least I tried

[Jim_in_PA]

You can certainly spread material with the BX…it will be slow, but it’s certainly doable. (Hard on the machine, however, due to the weight, and you absolutely want the 'hoe on the back for balance. But you’re going to need other equipment to compact the base, in addition to the initial excavation. You may or may not save money by hiring out partial rather than the whole thing, especially since it will take you awhile to move material with the BX compared to a larger machine. Many firms would use a small dozer to do that because they excel at spreading and leveling large areas.

[mmeqcenter]

@Sweetums Mom

So here is how DH and I did our DIY outdoor arena. First we bought the USDF Underfoot book. Then we scrapped off the topsoil using our tractor and box blade. We then let it sit for a few months as no money for anything else.

We then added stone dust (screenings some call it) and again let it sit but also rode on it. At first, it feels/looks like sand. Eventually, it got very hard and I used a chainlink harrow to try and soften it up. I secretly thought we didn’t need anything else put on top at that time. We used the arena for probably a year, maybe more, just riding on it, harrowing it, etc.

Then I finally got sand, river sand I think, and wow did that make a great difference. We had it dumped and DH moved it around with the FL. So now, it’s been about 15 years that we’ve had the arena and it’s held up very well. No holes, not slippery when wet, etc.

However, if I could do it over again, I would try to figure out the level better, even using a laser, so it would have better run off as there are places where the rain pools. So to summarize, we used our tractor, box blade and FL, time and money. Good luck!

If this is who I think it is, they did a GREAT job on their DIY arena, it was wonderful to ride in!

[Sweetums_Mom]

@mmeqcenter

If this is who I think it is, they did a GREAT job on their DIY arena, it was wonderful to ride in!

Thank you! Yes, you did ride on our DIY arena…

[Painthorsemilo]

@btswass

Awesome thanks! Been going back and forth on whether to get a box blade or not. I plan on putting down stone dust but renting a machine to compact it as we’re also putting it in the sacrifice paddock as I’m tired of having a mud pit all winter. Then putting down concrete sand on top of the stone dust in the arena. Definitely looking into getting a laser level. Money isn’t an issue but I hate the thought of spending so much when I could do it well enough myself

I have the same exact tractor as you (we have the backhoe too). Don’t get the box blade. We did and with the size of the he the her actor it’ not powerful enough the her actor really rip up the ground. It barely levels our 3/4- driveway.

[TrotTrotPumpkn]

LockeMeadows,

What equipment did you use? Did you compact the natural soil (after removing topsoil) before putting down your base? Did you put down any fabric between excavated natural soil and base? What did you use for base and how much?

Ring looks beautiful.

[Dressage59]

Following … We have an arena, but no footing in it.

[btswass]

LockeMeadows I’d love to know more too! Specifically what equipment you used to do the site work

[YoshLuis]

@Won_H

DIY a horse arena is a very challenging task as you need to find a good place, and then build the barn, lastly we need to install the lighting for horse arena. Using LED horse arena lighting saves 80% energy. LED lamps are better for environment because of its lower maintenance rate and higher energy efficiency.

thank you for the info. i almost forgot the lighting part.

[Fleurdelis]

@LockeMeadows

We put in our original show ring ourselves 20 years ago and just added two more. My ex-husband and I did the first one and then the guys that work for us put in our two new ones. We had to do quite a bit of site work due to the excessive rock ledges in our area. Our large arena is 200 x 350’ and then we put a large Dressage ring in. The Dressage ring didn’t need much work and is riding great.

For both, we got them almost completely flat and then added the base. We let that sit over winter and recently had both laser graded. We already have the footing in the Dressage ring (blue stone) and we have sand coming for the main ring this week if the snow misses us. Both rings held up GREAT with a few terrible floods in the past few months. They drained quickly and both would have been usable the following day. Please let me know if you have any specific questions.

Would love to hear more on how you accomplished this— geotextile fabric put down? equipment used for the site work? did you compact the base as others have?