I own a small boarding facility. While we are not “posh” it is definitely one of the nicer facilities in the area, just 3 years old. We have nice footing in our indoor which is meticulously maintained, tongue and groove pine kickboards, mirrors along the short side and a large viewing area, just to give you an idea. One of my barn rules is that “free lunging” and turnout is not allowed in the indoor. When horses are running and cavorting around in there, I find big skid marks in the footing where the horses have slid and hit the base as well as chew marks on the kickboards. I also have concerns that a loose horse could hit the mirrors of the large windows to the viewing lounge and hurt themselves. I think it’s a reasonable rule. However, almost every potential boarder that comes for a barn tour seems to object to this rule. Is this a regional thing? I’m from the Vancouver area and I can’t imagine any of the nice barns in that area allowing free lunging or turnout in their nice indoor arenas. Some of them don’t even allow regular lunging on a lunge line in their indoors. Now that I’m in Ontario though, everyone seems to expect that I should allow it. I just lost a potential boarder who was considering bringing four horses to my facility as this rule is a “deal breaker” for her. I’m just wondering if I am being unreasonable? We have very large safe paddocks (about 1/3 of an acre each) with safe fencing and good footing where the horses can cavort and play, so I don’t really see any reason why the horses need to be turned out in the indoor. There are few days in the spring where the ground could be very icy so turnout in paddocks would not be safe. In that case, I would ride/lunge on a lungeline/handwalk horses indoors for exercise.
My BO would kill anyone who turned out or free longed in her arena. She too, has good footing and mirrors.
Turned out horses just love to dig and roll leaving holes in the arena, and destroying the footing, and the mirrors are wonderful for training but not for free horses. The sight of nose marks on the mirrors, which means horses have been allowed to face-off the horse in the mirror, will send her ballistic.
We boarders all survive.
Stick by your guns.
My barn allows it, which I like due to the fact that we do not have dry lots that are safe in the types of weather conditions where I’d be wanting to let my horse run around for a few minutes. I’d be much happier putting him outside on a safe drylot for a couple of hours for horse to get the sillies out and maybe be with/near some buddies, but all of ours have this clay in them which is super slippery. They are not really manufactured dry lots, just small paddocks that tend to be dirt and weeds as compared to the nice hay pastures. If I do turnout in the indoor arena, I’m there supervising with a rake in hand to try to minimize the damage.
Mt current barn allows it under special circumstances. For instance, the outdoor arena and round pen were both mud pits, but I needed to see how my horse was moving at liberty. I was just checking for soundness, and no one else was at the barn. I turned him out in the indoor, observed for a little while and brought him back in.
Could I have just had someone trot him or walk around the barn aisle while I watched? Sure, but I wanted to specifically see what he would do at liberty and for how long he would do it by his own choice.
My BO was 110% OK with me doing that.
She also allows the barn staff to turn out specific horses into the indoor when they’re cleaning stalls and those horses can’t go out into the regular turn outs for whatever reason (usually injury related).
But as a general rule, people are not allow to just stick their horse in there to free lunge. We have a round pen for that.
At my last barn, everything was allowed. And it was a PAIN. So many people would turn their horse out in the arena and then not be able to catch them. Or say that “they were there first” and let the horses run for 10 more minutes while riders waited at the gate fuming. It was very annoying.
Your rule is more than reasonable: it is preservation of the good infrastructure provided at your facility. Period.
Your rules are reasonable because you are thinking long term.
That being said, I wouldn’t like it. My horse is young, and on days she’s just full of it, it’s best if I set her free for a few minutes instead of trying to hang on (and inevitably falling off) while riding it out.
I can and do lunge her, and she has 8 hours of group turn out, but neither are the same. She needs a good long gallop down the long side a few times, and sliding stops aren’t really her thing. I also have seen some of the worst damage to footing done by lunging (on a line), and the two broken mirrors we have are from a horse kicking out under saddle and on a lunge line. So you can’t protect against everything.
So I would probably still board with you, just fall off more often. 
But the chew marks would make me lose my s**t.
Your rules are reasonable because you are thinking long term.
That being said, I wouldn’t like it. My horse is young, and on days she’s just full of it, it’s best if I set her free for a few minutes instead of trying to hang on (and inevitably falling off) while riding it out.
I can and do lunge her, and she has 8 hours of group turn out, but neither are the same. She needs a good long gallop down the long side a few times, and sliding stops aren’t really her thing. I also have seen some of the worst damage to footing done by lunging (on a line), and the two broken mirrors we have are from a horse kicking out under saddle and on a lunge line. So you can’t protect against everything.
So I would probably still board with you, just fall off more often.
But the chew marks would make me lose my s**t.
My old trainer would allow free lunging if supervised. And if you damaged the mirrors, you had to pay to replace them. I was a haul in student and I really appreciated being able to let my horses stretch their legs when the footing was bad at home. She never complained that the footing was damaged by horses running around. (And believe me, she would have)! Free lunging in the winter is easier on the joints for the older guys than lunging on a small circle. Plus my horses are not allowed to buck and play when they have tack on.
Your barn, your rules. I think it is perfectly reasonable, and would board with you as I would appreciate the good footing and safety consciousness. I’ve never been a free lunger/arena turnout person. I want my horses to think the arena is time to behave. As long as they have turnout available elsewhere, I just don’t see the need to do it in the arena and risk the damage to the facility. Most of the people that have done it at the places where I have boarded in the past did it out of (what I perceived as) laziness. It was a way to get the horse out and not really do any work. YMMV, but that’s what I saw at places I’ve boarded.
[QUOTE=Peanut Palomino;8272942]
I turned him out in the indoor, observed for a little while and brought him back in.[/QUOTE]
This is different than what OP stated though (not picking on you 
). She finds big grooves dug down into her base…that is a HUGE no-no and I’d be right hacked off too. Someone who pops a horse in to watch it trot around for a few minutes is one things, a lot of the “free lungeing” I see is running the horse around like crazy and/or turning a snorty horse loose to ya-ya around the arena, throwing footing around and skidding to a stop at the gate.
Comes down to your barn, your rules.
Here we do free lunging while supervised and with approval from BO. Mainly always done in the mornings while the barn is quiet or at least when BO has time to drag afterwards.
Lunging generally isn’t allowed either in the indoor.
I don’t totally agree with no lunging. The free lunging in the indoor is mainly for the babies ( 3yrs and under) since out paddocks are tiny and there is no place to gallop/play. And we have no round pen, not young horse friendly at all.
Oh and we are in Vancouver.
P.
I allow free lunging, but the horse has to be supervised the entire time. It doesn’t happen often: usually just late winter when the horses start to get silly. I don’t think I have ridden anywhere that we couldn’t free lunge inside, although at the one barn there was just a lowish wall on two places, so we only free lunged if we had helpers to make sure the horse didn’t try to jump over the wall and into the barn! That said, I also have never ridden anywhere with particularly fancy footing.
It has been allowed at every barn I have boarded at except for one where the BO freaked out about everything (even sent invoices for chewed boards and damaged buckets).
Last winter when I had two weeks of below -30 weather-all the 20 horses were turned out in the indoor arena two at a time for this time. It was too cold to drag the footing every day since no machinery would start on the coldest days. I never saw a hint of the base at all. It did take longer to even out again but this is normal upkeep.
If horses are going to the base of your ring then I would guess the footing is not 100%. So no jumping either in your indoor ring? Some indoor arena’s can take barrel racing, jumping and reining sliding stops without damage… Mirrors will break, boards will need to be replaced and horses will chew things-this is normal Your barn-your rules but a ban on indoor arena turn out or free lunging would turn away every boarder here as well.
I am in Ontario. Last winter we had about 6 weeks were it was consistently -20C. I will not ride in those temperatures. The horses deserve a chance to stretch their legs and roll safely. Free lunging (letting them run around and stretch their legs) saved their sanity.
That being said, neither are crazy and interested in sliding stops. At most we had four or five canter laps around the indoor, a bit of trotting and a good roll. Supervised.
We don’t allow free lunging. Horses are not allowed to roll while being walked in hand in the indoor, either. Rolling horses do damage the base. Not to mention the potential danger the mirrors and windows present.
Our footing is wonderful and we protect it.
It is not unusual at the barn I ride at for owners/riders to free lunge the particularly fresh horses in the area prior to riding them. This is more likely to happen in the winter when there are no other safe places to get the nutties out of your horse. Of a barn of roughly 30 horse in training, there might be 2-3 being done on weeknights (if they can squeeze in when no one else is there). Try riding a fresh horse in an arena that is cracking due to the cold, or the snow sounds like a hurricane as it slides off the roof. Yes, they can mess up the footing a bit but not generally enough to make others concerned given that jumping makes a much worse mess (and we all know where the rake is stored). I totally understand not leaving a horse in there unsupervised; they wreck stuff.
no free lunging,no turnout and no rolling.we have spent a lot of money on footing and ring maintenance.
I’ve been to barns with both “okay” and “not okay” and I prefer the “not okay”. It wrecks the footing, makes holes, etc.
I’ve got a TB, I get it.
At my current barn, it’s “okay”…and we’ve got chewed or broken boards, holes, bent gates, poo that does not get picked up…:mad:
So no. It sucks. And it pisses me off that when the arena does get groomed, somebody’s horse is out there making holes and we’re right back where we started from.
[QUOTE=dotneko;8273337]
We don’t allow free lunging. Horses are not allowed to roll while being walked in hand in the indoor, either. Rolling horses do damage the base. Not to mention the potential danger the mirrors and windows present.
Our footing is wonderful and we protect it.[/QUOTE]
Ooh, that’s strict!
I have been able to avoid a lot of sore back issues (even with kinda bad fitting saddles) with the help of rolling offered to horses. And when I have been at places where that could only happen in hand, that’s what we did. I don’t see how it wrecks the base. I don’t recall having a horse punch through footing to get to the base…unless the footing was thin in the first place. And some footing is designed to be just a thin layers.
As to free lunging, I think it’s useful to be able to allow a horse to use his body the way he wants to. I’d have a hard time boarding at a barn that said “Never!” to that. Of course it should be supervised and not horse chased so that he skids into the same corner all the time. Good horsemen in my past suggested that I turn my horses out every fortnight or so (that’s 10 days) and watch 'em as part of keeping tabs on their soundness. There’s a lot to be learned by watching a horse move when he’s calling the shots entirely.
Barns that I have seen with mirrors usually have some kind of barrier or space that holds horses off of them.
If the OP had some other pen where one could do that free lunging safely, I think the ban on that in the indoor makes sense. I hate seen the skids or ruts some people allow their horses to ake when they free lunge thoughtlessly. But that’s not all of us.
[QUOTE=mvp;8273458]
Ooh, that’s strict!
I have been able to avoid a lot of sore back issues (even with kinda bad fitting saddles) with the help of rolling offered to horses. And when I have been at places where that could only happen in hand, that’s what we did. I don’t see how it wrecks the base. I don’t recall having a horse punch through footing to get to the base…unless the footing was thin in the first place. And some footing is designed to be just a thin layers.
As to free lunging, I think it’s useful to be able to allow a horse to use his body the way he wants to. I’d have a hard time boarding at a barn that said “Never!” to that. Of course it should be supervised and not horse chased so that he skids into the same corner all the time. Good horsemen in my past suggested that I turn my horses out every fortnight or so (that’s 10 days) and watch 'em as part of keeping tabs on their soundness. There’s a lot to be learned by watching a horse move when he’s calling the shots entirely.
Barns that I have seen with mirrors usually have some kind of barrier or space that holds horses off of them.
If the OP had some other pen where one could do that free lunging safely, I think the ban on that in the indoor makes sense. I hate seen the skids or ruts some people allow their horses to ake when they free lunge thoughtlessly. But that’s not all of us.[/QUOTE]
We do have very large safe paddocks for the winter with very safe footing where the horses can easily stretch their legs. Free lunging is also allowed in the outdoor arena. And all summer they have access to large safe pastures that are several acres large. So other than a few days in the spring when things are icy, I don’t see why anyone needs to turnout in the indoor. And I also have several youngsters and green broke horses. If I think they are going to be too frisky to ride, I lunge them, on a lunge line with side reins, until I think they are safe for me to get on.
