Maintaining unused arena

[acon]

Hello all,

I’m looking for advice on maintaining an outdoor arena that won’t see any usage for a long time. I’m located in Seattle area - summers can get hot for 2-3 months, winters with no or very little or no snow and lots of raining in between.
I’ll be purchasing a property with an 100x70 outdoor riding arena. The condition of the arena is good. The top layer is sand and rubber and the drainage for the arena is very good.
I won’t have any use at all for the arena myself and I’m wondering how to have it still in good condition if in 1, 10 or 30 years I will want to resell the property.

I am considering the following approaches, what are your thoughts about them ? Are there better alternatives ?
#1 Drag it once or twice a month. This requires labor so i’d rather not go this way if I can avoid it.
#2 Cover it with tarps to prevent weeds growing and UV from destroying the rubber.
#3 Spray it with weed killer when the weeds get too bad (how often would this be ?)
#4 Mix in salt with the sand and rubber - will keep the weeds away, at least for a while ?

If I leave it as is without maintenance I assume it will just turn into a weed field and it might be permanently damaged. Is this the case ? Or can I ignore it and then try to restore it say, 10 years later ?

Thanks!

[Mallard]

My sand ring - no rubber - was not used for 3 years as I boarded out the only rideable pony we had at that time.
When I brought the pony home the ring looked awful…totally covered with grass & weeds.
A neighbouring cattle guy sprayed it once with round up and once the weeds were dead, then we dragged it. And dragged it. And dragged it again. Added some sand and surprisingly it came back very nicely.
I’m not sure how the rubber will react to non-use. It may just disintegrate after time passes.
I’m in Ontario… not sure where you are and your location will probably have some bearing on how your ring will be in months/years.

[js]

I would look at covering it with a weed barrier then putting enough cheap dirt on top to hold the weed barrier in place? Not sure that would be good but perhaps keep the weeds back at least.

If you have no use for the arena then why bother with it, I’m not sure resale in 10 years may be worth the upkeep on it. In 10 years you will have needed to do maintenance on the arena fence as well as well as edges etc., may not be worth your time and money to keep it up. I’m assuming there is a barn/stables too, hence why you want to keep the arena in good shape for resell value?

[Tarlo_Farm]

If you have horses you ride, why don’t you think you’ll use the whole space? And if you don’t want to use it, let it be. If in ten years, it needs to be restored, it likely won’t be much of an issue. But A LOT can happen in ten years.

[anon81364900]

If you really think it won’t be used for many years, I would consider scraping up and selling the sand/rubber footing. It’s going to degrade over the years whether it’s used or not, just from environmental stress. Sell it now while it’s still good-- getting pennies on the dollar is still better than maintaining something year after year that’s losing value the whole time.

Then you’re just left with the question of how to keep the base intact, which seems easier. Spray, put down geotextile and rock over it. Spray 1-2x annually. When you’re ready to reverse and put the arena back into use, you can re-use the rock elsewhere on the farm. A farm has never been invented that couldn’t use more rock somewhere.