Impart unto a moron your arena footing wisdom

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

The moment I’ve been dreading is here. The new arena has its compacted base and is ready to go. All it lacks is the footing. And although I’ve seen this coming for over a year, I still don’t know what to buy.

What I do know is this: I am not a fan of the deep, overly-cushiony footing, whether it be sand, rubber, or GGT – that everyone else seems to love. If I don’t like to run on it, I can’t imagine the horses do, either. My arena will be used mainly for flat work, maybe a little hopping over the occasional X, a few times a week. Now that I’m a crone I’ll be easing off the barrel racing and puissance somewhat.

What’s in your favorite arena?

[NancyM]

Unless you are a member of the mega rich, there are limitations as to what is available to you. Limitations are: What is available in your area, and what you can afford.

With a good packed gravel base installed already, IMO, what you need to look for is a source of angular sand (that is, sand that is not round like ball bearings) of course size. Mix that with an organic. This can be sawdust, peat, or something baled from Germany, Nike running shoe material shredded, rubber, or what is available to you. The third element is moisture. Once all this is mixed together, and the moisture content is supplied and maintained, you get nice footing. The organic material gives some spring, and holds the moisture. The sand gives grit, and body. You want the footing to compact when the horse steps on it, and return some of the energy back to the horse, but not be too soft nor too hard. The grit of the sand makes it not slippery, and the angular nature of the sand avoids the slippery nature of ball bearing sand.

Straight sand without the additive of organics gets loose and drains moisture too fast, or compacts too much like concrete. Straight organics lack body, weight, and traction. So mix them.

[fjordmom]

Straight old 2NS (angular) sand. About 2 inches deep. Don’t put in too much to start. It’s easier to add than take out later. Have LOVED it for the almost 7 years I’ve had it. (This is for my indoor; outdoor is good flat natural sod.)

Use it for dressage riding and the kids did low level jumps (2’6"ish mainly.) Very easy to maintain, just water as needed (maybe once a week or less) with one of those tripod sprinklers that does a 70’ circle. Let run 15 -30 minutes while I’m doing chores. Move, sprinkle other half. Done. Easy! Worst part is rolling the hose back up, which is really nothing. (I have that out to fill horses’ buckets anyhow.) Have a small, toothed drag that I can pull with the yard tractor. Drag after watering and every-once-in-a-while hand rake the sides down so I don’t get a big build up.

I do add a light mix of mag-chloride every couple of years to keep the footing from freezing. (I’m in the northern midwest tundra.) Think I’ve used maybe a dozen bags total over the course of all the years. The first application was the biggest, the other 2 were just top-offs. The stuff is hydrophilic and as long as you don’t overwater it hasn’t seemed to leach away on me. Not seeming to cause any rust issues so far with either building or equipment either.

All very simple, very easy, and didn’t cost a ton. The building was the big budget bite, but I have not regretted building it for even a minute. Love it!

As Nancy says about the sand is spot on. Only place I beg to differ a little: I have not found the need for anything organic as long as the footing is maintained - kept at proper moisture and dragged. Have literally never had any soundness issues with either of my horses, both coming 19 in a weeks or others that boarded here.

To your other question: I do have a friend nearby who has basically what I have with the addition of the black rubber flakes. (I pretty much copied her, but had too small a budget for the rubber.) It is also very nice, although she seems to have to water more than I (but she has screen, not solid sides on her arena, so more breeze.) I don’t find it so much nicer that I feel the need to spend on the rubber and someday that rubber is going to be an environmental issue to dispose of. I literally live in a gravel mining district and will probably just spread my sand on the driveway (I have a long one) if the time comes for a redo.

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

NancyM, I just clicked on your website and holy moly what a beautiful place you have. Let me know if you should ever decide to adopt a Texan.

Has anybody any experience with the rubber flake stuff? It looks like pine shavings, only black?

[2DogsFarm]

I did the angular sand over compacted gravel 10yrs ago. 2" of sand.
Like fjordmom said: much easier to ADD sand than remove excess.

As it is Just Me riding, this has lasted fine with very little compacting around the perimeter.
I do occasionally water in the worst part of Summer to lay the dust as I tend to keep the sliders open all the way around for ventilation.

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

Thanks yall. I realize this topic has probably been done to death on this forum, but my search technique is not all that it should be.

[VCT]

I have a mixture of limestone screening (dust to 1/4 inch or so pieces) and rubber crumbs.

Here is what happened:
We had an 8" gravel base put in. Compacted… etc.
We were then going to cap that with 4 inches of limestone and then put sand on top.
They could not get the limestone to compact to a sufficient degree. Walking horses on it loosened it up. It was quite lovely on it’s own though so we opted to just stop there and as it compacted over time we could add more footing later. 5-6 years went by and we added about an inch of rubber crumb to the limestone screenings footing. Beautiful surface. Firm but cushioned. This spring we are adding about an inch of angular sand to the indoor as it’s getting too shallow in there. The outdoor is still perfect.

[horsepoor]

Are you talking an indoor or outdoor arena? IME, I have not been happy with straight sand inside but like it outside. At least outside, if a little dusty, it kind of has so we here to go, but inside you are breathing and wearing it. I have an outdoor ring and have a mix of sand, rubber, and fiber that is lovely when the moisture content is just right or a little dry, but I don’t like it when super wet…so I sometimes wish I’d done straight sand which wouldn’t hold water as much.

There are all sorts of rubber products up here that people have used, and with various results. Recently saw some larger rubber pieces added to a horribly hard sand/gravel footing that helped some, but in reality, that place has so many issues, it needs to be redone (base is wrecked, and a formerly nice sand and nike footing was wrecked by BO adding gravel, yes, gravel, so they “wouldn’t have to water it so much”). Another place added small crumb rubber to a sand arena, which all packed and became harder than ever. But they also never understood that water and harrowing was an essential part of arena maintenance.

Up here in the land of trees, wood products are often used as indoor footing, as it is cheaper and readily available, but it can be more difficult to work with and tends to be uneven. Can’t imagine that wood be too common down where you are!

[NancyM]

[QUOTE=The Crone of Cottonmouth County;7490171]
NancyM, I just clicked on your website and holy moly what a beautiful place you have. Let me know if you should ever decide to adopt a Texan.

Has anybody any experience with the rubber flake stuff? It looks like pine shavings, only black?[/QUOTE]

LOL thanks for the vote of confidence. It was all hayfield and bush six years ago. Always open for visitations by horsie friends from afar, but fear that our snow and ice would freeze your Texan butt off.

At our last place, we had a small indoor lunging arena (70 X 70) which was originally with gyrosand footing, which was a bit too compacting/hard. So we added rubber to that, just one load. It was free, just paid for trucking, don’t know why. It did improve the footing in there, but did have to keep it watered and harrowed. Dry rubber dust make for the interior of human nostrils being quite nasty, let alone horse nostrils. Its an option, if it is available and affordable. Our current indoor arena has the compacted gravel base (sourced on the farm), and capped with sandy topsoil (which was dug out of the foundation for the arena). Just put about 2 inches back in on top of the gravel. Used that for footing until it compacted too much. Then added some sawdust (free here, including delivery) about 2 inches. Rototilled lightly, to mix that with the top inch of topsoil. Then added two inches of sand, locally sourced, and mixed that all together. It is very nice now. The fella who delivered the sand (from his sand bank on his farm just down the road- 6 loads) claimed that he had screened it. But his screen I think was a two inch screen. It looked fine when it was delivered, looked like coarse sand. But the more we worked it with the harrows, the more rocks came to the surface, until it looked like gravel. So we hand picked the gravel out. Sigh. It took a couple of weeks to do this, with a manure fork, into the tractor bucket, and used it where I needed some gravel. So, I occasionally do find some small gravel rocks that I remove, but my horses feet are so good here (due to the weather and hard ground), that my horses are not bothered by these small remaining rocks. Visiting horses sometime are. The footing is abrasive, the footing separates the men from the boys in terms of hoof quality (this is a local joke here, we came from a wet, coastal environment where our horses could not have tolerated this footing). The topsoil component helps to hold the footing together, the sawdust is the organic part, gives spring and holds water, the sand gives body/weight and traction.

We have had compliments on this footing. It was not expensive to do. The fella who delivered the six loads of sand (?) is taking six loads of topsoil (we still have a huge pile of this that we need to get rid of) as payment.

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

@horsepoor: My ring is covered but not enclosed. The irrigation guy is finishing up the sprinklers today, so, at least as long as the water holds out, I’ll be able to keep the footing moist, whatever it ends up being.

My new walker, also nearly completed, has that rubber flake footing I mentioned on top of plastic Stable Grid or whatever that stuff is called. Kraft sent it along as part of the walker package. Horses haven’t christened it yet (that’s another thread!) but I’ve given it the Crone test and it seems fine for walking around in a circle. However, for riding it seems like it would be almost too springy.

I suspect, based on all my relentless research, that success is all going to boil down to whether I can get my hands on the right kind of sand.

@Nancy: I totally feel ya on that rock thing. Cottonmouth County is the cosmic hub of rocks. I spend at least an hour of every day picking chunks of flint out of paddocks, trails, and walkways. It will never be over for me, alas.

Also, you are probably right about my butt’s incompatibility with snow and ice. Although this year I got smart and ordered one of those big-ass expedition-weight mountain-climbing sleeping-bag parkas from an online outfitter. I looked pretty ridic, and people made Michelin man jokes, but when the temp dropped into the 20s a couple of times, my rump was roasty and who was laughing now?

[sirensong4]

I have literally nothing to add except to say that your blog is all hilarity!

[myrna]

Hi Nancy.Just what i needed to hear about organics and sand.Our outdoor here in chilliwack needs to be topped up,the hog fuel is breaking down.The base is clay,then some sand and hog fuel on top.I am thinking of adding crush or sand right on top to give it more stability.Just need some dry weather.

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

[QUOTE=sirensong4;7493224]
I have literally nothing to add except to say that your blog is all hilarity![/QUOTE]

You are too kind. Recent compliments here at COTH have inspired me to start posting again. Something dreadful happens every day out here.

[NancyM]

Myrna, falling into the hogfuel trap is something that has happened to practically everyone in this province, especially the fraser valley. Its great until it breaks down. Then it has to be removed, and disposed of. Good luck with that. BTDT. If you can get it down to two inches of broken down hogfuel, (on top of nice compacted gravel base- a clay base is always a problem IMO), you could use it as an organic component. But often, it is originally put on much deeper than that. So there is often a lot to get rid of before getting to the small amount that can be successfully left. The impossibility of dealing with the footing breakdown in the incessant rain is part of the reason we moved AWAY from where you are LOL! Look north, and east, and get out of the fraser valley, and your footing problems and equine foot problems will be solved.

Crone, +20 degrees F, that’s funny! ROTFLMAO! Considered T shirt weather, here. -20F is were we start to feel chilly. However, we have no venomous snakes, and so much water that it pukes out of our mountain in an artesian well, with the run off diverted into the year round creek. Lots of water in a semi arid climate here. And my feral cats all get along, great friends who sleep in each others arms (to stay warm) and share their feed dishes politely. I just got my feral stallion cat gelded for free at the SPCA feral cat day last week. Yes, I read your blog too, you are a very talented writer. Write on! If you venture north to the land of milk and honey, I shall expect you to knock on my door. Come in the summer!

[myrna]

Thanks Nancy.good info.

[Blue_Yonder]

Crone, we share the same climate down here. We’ve had good luck with a similarly compacted base, then about 2 inches of “manufactured sand” (angular, not round grains) in our outdoor ring. That’s the actual name of product on my most recent invoice from Brauntex (who deliver, and are good folks).

Best of luck in your shiny new ring!

[The_Crone_of_Cottonmouth_Count]

Thanks for the tip, Blue Yonder. I can hardly believe this ring is about to be a reality. It’s been under construction since last summer. I say to the contractor, “you know it only took 18 months to build the Empire State Building?” And he just says “yes, ma’am.”

[arlosmine]

I would steer clear of adding a wood product to sand. The sand accelerates the breakdown of the wood product because of its abrasive qualities, and you end up with more wood dust. I would use something else, like rubber as an additive…or just find really good, mixed sized, coarse angular sand.

You will have to replace sand eventually also…any footing will eventually break down to the point that it becomes"dead" (particles so fine that there is no airspace between them), but if you are riding just a few horses every day, it will take a Looooooong time

[E_D]

I put in an outdoor arena some 16 years ago in the Austin area. I call it the Roman Arena because it sure wasn’t built in a day. I have a soil called “black gumbo” which can become rather soul sucking after a torrential downpour. My area of arena construction had a 18" fall in topography which required a great deal of road base fill. Once that was completed, we hauled in “washed river sand” and mixed with rubber crumbs from a tire recapping business. (Those crumbs are now contracted for by the company that sells equestrian rubber footing). Washed river sand is larger sand, almost little tiny rocks. It has lasted all 16 years without much more than dragging and relocating what is kicked outside the arena. There was very little dust with this type of sand. However, the sand breaks down the rubber to rubber dust over time, making your arena look all black and somewhat more dusty in drought. I will eventually add more rubber, but for now I like the firmness offered by the footing. I almost never water the arena because of our drought in Texas, saving water from my well for household use and watering horses and out of respect for my neighbors well water.

[chelzee22]

[QUOTE=fjordmom;7490167]
Straight old 2NS (angular) sand. About 2 inches deep. Don’t put in too much to start. It’s easier to add than take out later. Have LOVED it for the almost 7 years I’ve had it. (This is for my indoor; outdoor is good flat natural sod.)

Use it for dressage riding and the kids did low level jumps (2’6"ish mainly.) Very easy to maintain, just water as needed (maybe once a week or less) with one of those tripod sprinklers that does a 70’ circle. Let run 15 -30 minutes while I’m doing chores. Move, sprinkle other half. Done. Easy! Worst part is rolling the hose back up, which is really nothing. (I have that out to fill horses’ buckets anyhow.) Have a small, toothed drag that I can pull with the yard tractor. Drag after watering and every-once-in-a-while hand rake the sides down so I don’t get a big build up.

I do add a light mix of mag-chloride every couple of years to keep the footing from freezing. (I’m in the northern midwest tundra.) Think I’ve used maybe a dozen bags total over the course of all the years. The first application was the biggest, the other 2 were just top-offs. The stuff is hydrophilic and as long as you don’t overwater it hasn’t seemed to leach away on me. Not seeming to cause any rust issues so far with either building or equipment either.

All very simple, very easy, and didn’t cost a ton. The building was the big budget bite, but I have not regretted building it for even a minute. Love it!

As Nancy says about the sand is spot on. Only place I beg to differ a little: I have not found the need for anything organic as long as the footing is maintained - kept at proper moisture and dragged. Have literally never had any soundness issues with either of my horses, both coming 19 in a weeks or others that boarded here.

To your other question: I do have a friend nearby who has basically what I have with the addition of the black rubber flakes. (I pretty much copied her, but had too small a budget for the rubber.) It is also very nice, although she seems to have to water more than I (but she has screen, not solid sides on her arena, so more breeze.) I don’t find it so much nicer that I feel the need to spend on the rubber and someday that rubber is going to be an environmental issue to dispose of. I literally live in a gravel mining district and will probably just spread my sand on the driveway (I have a long one) if the time comes for a redo.[/QUOTE]

FjordMom, what is your base? Do you just have sand? I have a grassy area I’m looking to convert into a sand arena and I’m on a budget.