Help/advice- problems with outdoor arena footing!

[ihearttbs]

I’m leasing a farm for the first time that has an outdoor arena that was put in a couple years ago, I was told it is a clay/sand mix but don’t know much else. We use it for dressage and low jumping. A good deal of the footing washed out before drainage was put in, but drainage is in now so we are going to add more footing. I maintain the arena with an ABI drag that has a rake and a leveling blade.

The consistent problem I’m running into is that the footing seems to compact a ton and hold a lot of moisture whenever it rains, and I can’t do much with the drag then… to me it seems like the footing is more clay than sand. How would we go about fixing this when adding new footing- should I only add washed sand or still get a clay/sand mix? Does the compaction issue I’m having change what I should be looking for in terms of how angular the sand should be?

Any advice is helpful. Thx!

[Equibrit]

As with most things - it depends how much you want to spend.

FAQ: Riding Arena Footing

[clanter]

I’m leasing a farm

A trainer friend was leasing a place that had a huge outdoor arena, the estimated cost to alter the surface to his needs was in the several hundreds of thousands of dollars that the property owner was not going to foot the bill for as they were wanting to sell the place.

He moved to another property

[Pennywell_Bay]

My ring is similar (it sounds). I drag my ring before the rain and that makes it ridable 97% of the time. If I don’t drag it it will compact down. It is literally just me and my kid so I didn’t invest a lot when I purchased the property to perfect the existing ring, other than adding sand when it needs it, but I do spend time prepping when I know rain is coming and that has solved a large part of the issue for me.

[Mosey_2003]

I would imagine the thing to do would be to add just sand so that you dilute the clay down some but how much of an investment are you really wanting to make on a lease?

[enjoytheride]

Most rings will working into their base a bit over time. I drag mine after it rains as soon as there are no puddles to keep it from compacting, then will drag every few days until it totally dries. Then repeat every time it rains. If I wait until it’s 100% then it’s like concrete and won’t drag up.

If you are adding a new load of sand you usually have 1 to 2 seasons before it starts to pack hard after a rain.

If you drag before it rains to get rid of any hoof prints it will drain and dry faster.

[Mcl1]

I have a clay arena with no added sand. When mine gets compacted after rain (and periodically due to use), I use a chisel plow (picture below) to loosen it up prior to dragging. I can set the height that I want it to dig in fairly accurately, and my drag (chain harrow type) alone is not enough to loosen it up and break up the surface.