Hello,
I’ve done some searching in the forums and haven’t found anything so far. Does anybody have any resources for building/maintaining a grass field for riding? Right now we have a large space (about 250x250 ft) that is mostly flat with some rolling slopes. It has been being used as a grass riding area, but it is filled with squirrel holes and the ground gets hard very quickly. We want to be able to use it throughout the summer for jumping and light riding (we have a covered ring, but it’s nice for the horses to get out in a bigger space). We are going to disc the field and add irrigation. I’m wondering if it is worth adding some sandy loam to the soil. I have done a little bit of research, and maintenance on the grass competition fields is quite expensive and time intensive. Has anybody done something like this? We want to make the field more useful and give ourselves larger space for jumping in the summer without going to the extreme that competition venues need to.
I am also considering now that maybe it would just be better to try and put in an outdoor arena. I’ve never built a facility or been involved in building one before, so I don’t know any of the real numbers for what it would cost. I would love to be able to ride the horses on the grass, but cost and maintenance wise, would it be more efficient to spend more up front and put in a nice large ring? We could do that in a way that would leave enough grass to ride and jump a few fences, but we wouldn’t need to rely on it as heavily as we would if we had no outdoor.
There is no extreme pressure on these decisions. The covered ring is quite sufficient for now. The field will be getting disced soon to remove the squirrel holes and reseed for use next year and I would like to have some answers on amending the footing before that happens.
Thank you all for your input!
