Extending an existing arena?

[taylorelaine]

Just curious—would it be possible to extend an existing outdoor arena?

We had our arena built last year, but at the time, we had to make it 10 feet shorter in length because of a palm tree. I know we could have removed the tree, but I didn’t want to kill it just for the sake of 10 feet. However, it ended up dying this winter, and we had to have it removed.

Now, I’m wondering—is it possible to extend the arena by that extra 10 feet that I originally wanted? Or, since it’s already built, would that not be feasible? If it is possible, could it potentially affect or disturb the base’s stability and drainage?

Would it be better to leave it untouched? I’d only want to proceed if the extension would blend seamlessly with what’s already there and wouldn’t cause any issues.

[trubandloki]

Are you talking an indoor or are you talking footing in an outdoor?

[Demerara_Stables]

How well it blends depends on the construction. Was there a crushed rock base put down? Fabric? The biggest problem that I would see is that you really do want to compact everything together in the base to make it blend seamlessly. You would probably have to scrape back the top layer of footing from the existing arena for at least 10 or 20 ft for the full width of the arena to get the base blended with the additional 10 ft you want to add, then work your way up from there in the different layers. The number of layers will dictate how complicated it is. It seems like a lot of work to go through just for another 10 ft. Will that 10 ft really make a big difference to you when you are riding?

[MapleFarm]

It’s a good question, as I’d like to do the same in my arena. It was here when we bought the farm, and clearly built to be a small dressage square, but the builder put it on the line exactly. I’d like to get ~15 feet added. My contractor said it would be fine, but better to be cutting into new land rather than building up land (mine is somewhat on a hill, one end slopes down, one up). Interested to hear advice on this as well!

[horsepoor]

With enough money, you can make anything work. I’d ask the original builder. You might decide 10 feet is not worth the cost.

[LCDR]

I have done that - extended my 20x40 meter dressage arena to 20x60 after moving to eventing tests that were ridden in a standard arena. Hopefully the pitch for drainage is there so you don’t have to cut into an uphill slope andeven have to deal with putting up a retaining wall.

As a bonus the preparation created a pile of nice topsoil equivalent to about 8-10 dump truck loads. To have that much topsoil trucked in to help level out my pastures at my local price would have cost me $5,500-$6,500.

[Bluey]

I did that myself, with our own bulldozer, cutting more on the higher side, so on firm ground that didn’t need to be packed down.

Not recommended to use a bulldozer, takes forever to move dirt with one, a grader is much better, getting a commercial business that builds pads even better.

As mentioned, you will be surprised at the cost, but may be worth to you.