“But if prepared correctly, it will indeed absorb shock.”
OK. Tell me more! Oh, or was that covered in the clay base & screenings from one of your above posts? That makes it sound like your footing is a pea gravel/screening mix.
Am I correct in that assumption?
I seriously dislike the idea of an involuntary dismount in that stuff…:no:
[QUOTE=Beasmom;4543322]
“But if prepared correctly, it will indeed absorb shock.”
OK. Tell me more! Oh, or was that covered in the clay base & screenings from one of your above posts? That makes it sound like your footing is a pea gravel/screening mix.
Am I correct in that assumption?[/QUOTE]
It’s not a gravel/screenings mix. There’s a lot more to it than slapping down some clay, putting screenings on top, and then shoveling the gravel on top. Like any good base, the layers should not mix.
The problem with the pea gravel packing down into the clay, described by another poster, will be fixed by putting the screenings on top of the clay (screenings are flat, so they pack down to form a more uniform layer than gravel). This let’s the screenings pack, not the gravel so that there will be a solid base for the pea gravel to sit on top of. Doing this makes sure it won’t pack down, and get hard or uneven. With a solid, uniform base in place, you can add enough of the pea gravel on top so that it’s soft enough to absorb shock, but not so soft that it’ll bog the horses down.
It’s the same as you would pack down the base for a sand arena (in this area at least) so the sand doesn’t just get ground down into the underlying sand/clay (depending if you’re 5 feet this way or that down here).
As an aside, we’ve had 14 vettings done this year, and every one of the vets first went “What?!”, and then loved it. The most important thing to do with this type of arena is make sure that you’ve got the base, depths, etc all correct before starting.
This is what our “peastone” looks like:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Dpeastone%26ei%3DUTF-8%26fr%3Dmoz2%26fr2%3Dtab-web&w=500&h=375&imgurl=static.flickr.com%2F2056%2F2280612420_87ba7c74fe.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.flickr.com%2Fphotos%2F23952215%40N04%2F2280612420%2F&size=218k&name=Abby+sleeping+on…&p=peastone&oid=7f97908b252136fa&fr2=tab-web&fusr=CorgiCarolin…&no=1&tt=101&sigr=11lpd30nj&sigi=11g39p2pm&sigb=12ki8kuli#FCar=731963438d848ac6
We use it around our gardens, in addition to our run ins:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31882400&l=811beef4bf&id=13002359
Yes, that looks just like the stuff in the arena at the approvals, Nanerpus.
Thanks for the clarification, Coppers mom.
Alagirl, I’m with you! But, to be fair, I should fall on the stuff before passing judgement, right?
If you think pea gravel is bad, when I was a kid riding Saddlebreds, the outdoor arena footing was clamshells! (This was back when they used to use clamshells for roads and driveways)
OW! :eek:
I remember clamshell driveways in coastal Texas towns…
they did some sort of study here about children’s playgrounds.
They found there were fewer fractures and injuries when kids fell off the monkey bars into pea gravel rather than the hog fuel/bark chips they had been using. When properly laid, the pea gravel actually is a good shock absorber. However, at one boarding stable where they use it in their paddocks, a horse with a stone bruise was getting worse and worse and finally absecessed- the vet blamed the pea gravel and he got better when they mopved him onto softer footing ( bark chips)
We have coarse, angular, crusher run type crushed limestone over a packed clay base. It is easy to walk on and work in (I was longeing my TWH in sidereins over cavalletti at a canter on it this weekend). It drags smooth easily and isn’t prone to blowing away and it can’t pack and settle hard like some sand can.
The round and ovally smooth pea gravel as footing? Terrible idea. The crushed and angular pea gravel? Makes great footinf for pathways, etc, but I don’t know about it for footing, but would think it’s ok.
So it’s important to verify what one is calling ‘pea gravel’.
Yes, it seems “pea gravel” is many things to different people!
I thought it was gravel that looked liked peas?
That’s what it is here- rounded pebbles the size of peas in a pod. that’s why they use it in playgrounds- it rolls a little and absorbs the shock by moving out of the way. I did not think that sort would be good as a riding surface as it would roll and be a great effort to move on- like dry beach sand versus angular gravel washings sand.
yes that is right Cat but it’s always a good idea to verify what the OP is describing, really IS ‘pea gravel’. It might not be what was actually on the arena floor.
Like some folks don’t know a straw bale from a hay bale, if you aren’t a horse person.
Beasmom, your pea gravel is on the way! 
Yaay! Pea gravel for Christmas!
Ok then… I have to tell you this story…
last year I was horsesitting for someone whose entire dry lot/barn area is done in pea gravel. LMEqT was with me. At some point she told me she had to pee and I grabbed her some napkins from the car and directed her to behind the barn…
she said “oh yeah! That’s why you call this stuff PEE GRAVEL, this is perfect for peeing in”!!!
:lol:
Around here, pea gravel is round and smooth and the angular stuff is called crushed gravel. I rode in a pea gravel arena once and it was okay but I wouldn’t want to ride all the time in it. I hated walking around in the stuff on foot since it slid and you could never get a foothold. It was very difficult to walk in, as compared to normal ground or a normal sand arena. I can’t imagine it would be good for the horse’s joints if you rode in it day after day. However, the horse I was riding seemed perfectly at ease in the arena and jumped lovely in it too.
I was recently at a barn that had it in the arenas and i hated it very hard and really dusty! There are much better alternatives to this footing. And after rain it got quite slick!
That’s odd… I wouldn’t want to ride on it. But in some cases I guess it could make sense.
[QUOTE=narcisco;4540452]
It’s pretty common here in Colorado where the wind blows every drop of sand away unless you mix it with something.
What I have seen is a very, very fine grain, mixed with sand and/or rubber. I think it may actually be called pea sand. The base is prepared as normal. I suspect the grain and the mixture make all the difference. The drainage tends to be really good.
It doesn’t seem to damage the horse’s hooves any more than sand (think sandpaper). And I don’t see more than the usual soundness issues from it.[/QUOTE]
You are seeing the size between concrete sand and pea gravel, called “squeegee” locally. It makes very good outdoor arena footing mixed with either wood chips or small crumb rubber (small enough to stay down IN the footing and not float away) or both. Squeegee also provides more grip than concrete sand when laid directly on a clay base and worked in a bit, for a very low budget starter arena.
Aah! Now I’ve ridden in squeegee and agree it makes pretty nice footing for these parts.
Eqtrainer’s sample arrived a few days ago. It is the angular stuff, not the round “pebbles”. It looks like it would make for a nice packed surface, for walkways, driveways, and the like. The angularity prevents it sliding – I imagine this stuff would sort of “lock” together.
But it’s not what I think of when I think of pea gravel…
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