Pea gravel for footing? Really?

[Plumcreek]

[QUOTE=Beasmom;4558890]

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.
…[/QUOTE]

Here in Colorado, I have never found angular crusher fines that have been washed. Our unwashed crusher fines will pack hard, and you get a whole lot of fine clay dust (the feldspar in the gray granite, or worse, the red rhyolite dust). In the East, they seem to have available a wider variety and possibly some angular fines that have been lightly washed to remove the dust, and I am speculating that is the footing many people talk about.

[NJRider]

I remember this thread and now see that a local barn with pea gravel is having a USDF/USEF rated show. Are they required to put in the show bill an accurate and true description? If so I wonder what the competitors reaction will be. I have seen some smaller events there where they sometimes say it is a “chat mix”…however, it is nothing but gravel…

[siksika]

Best footing I ever rode on was crushed/shredded rubber, the pieces about the size of peas. Fantastic and the horses felt great with it.

[ThreeFigs]

Yes, rubber footing is wonderful stuff. I like it mixed with sand. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an arena with nothing BUT crushed/shredded rubber.

Nike Airfoot is lovely stuff to ride on.

[lstevenson]

@Beasmom;4713888

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an arena with nothing BUT crushed/shredded rubber.

I have seen an arena that was nothing but shredded rubber, and it was suprisingly slippery. Maybe alright for dressage, but not good for jumping.

I agree that a sand and rubber mix is the best.

[ThreeFigs]

Was that footing rubber crumb? Just curious. I imagine crumbs would “roll” underfoot while shreds would lie flat & stable. I’m wondering if my “theory” is correct.

Wow. Wouldn’t pure rubber footing be hella expensive?

[enjoytheride]

Our local horse park has pea gravel footing in the arenas. I’ve never shown a shod horse there and have not had problems but might want to put shoes on if I was riding in it constantly.

It holds up really well to lots of traffic, isn’t slippery, and is about as soft as any other footing when you fall off on it. Personal experience by the way. I have several videos of people riding on it on my youtube account if anyone was interested in seeing them. It is a tad noisier then sand but no big deal.

[NJRider]

I know that all the riders in a dressage clinic complained to no end about how bad the pea gravel was in this arena where they are having the rated show. I imagine it will not be well received. I just hope that the USEF requires the manager to put the correct info in the prize list. This is actually pea gravel, little stones and nothing else. It is pretty heavy and has no support. I think this product mixed with sand and rubber would probably be very good.
I audited a clinic last week that was very deep in chunks of rubber. It was deep and really stunk! But it was brand new…

[Bif]

A barn I boarded at had a gravel ring (bigger than pea gravel!) and my horse, really, really liked it, and so did my farrier! Both shod and unshod he did well on it (horse, not farrier:lol:), but it was a good depth and good base at that time.
It was never slippery and drained nicely, and it there were puddles, they were really just a “sheet” of water over the footing, not a mud/grippy quagmire different in footing, if that makes sense.
If the depth is correct, gravel footing seems to move enough to provide cushion, and exfoliates and toughens the horses’ feet. If it is too thin or the base isn’t right, oh yes, the horses will probably sore. So I think the depth of that footing and base preparation matters more than “Oh, No! It’s GRAVEL!”

[ThreeFigs]

We’re rolling back to the definition of Pea Gravel. I (finally) looked it up online. The sites I glanced at define pea gravel as large river sand or small river pebbles, which agrees with my recollection of the stuff my folks used as footing in their dog runs.

I’ve ridden on paths in some of our local parks that have a sort of angled stone footing. Similar to the sample Eqtrainer sent me a while back.These paths have been prepared so they are firm but not terribly hard & unforgiving. Nice for trail riding/conditioning work. Not adequate for a dressage ring, but fine for the purpose. It’s not slippery, and it’s mixed into whatever the base is. We have a lot of bentonite clay in the soil here, and when that stuff gets wet, it’s SLICK!

Whoever prepped the base for those paths did a good job.

Stink? Heck, 35 years ago my instructor sprayed used motor oil on his footing to settle the dust. Yeah, I know. Not healthy, but back then nobody knew (or cared).

[ThreeFigs]

I would not ride on the sort of pea gravel my folks had in the kennels. Not with my horse. I presented my mare years ago at a warmblood inspection in a pea-gravel (the round river pebble kind) indoor ring. The presentation was moved there at the last minute due to bad/rainy weather.

It was hard to run in, slippery, noisy. The inspector was not impressed, either. I was issued an invitation to re-present my mare the next year at another facility.

[nhwr]

I live in southern California. We have serious clay in my neck of the woods. I graded a slope with a 10 ft drop for my arena (20x60 meters). After we got down a couple of feet, we found the most interesting material beneath the clay. I think it is decomposed granite, a little finer than pea gravel but courser than sand. It makes a great riding surface, drains well, never slick, not dusty. I ride a couple of horses a day in it with minimal maintenance. It rained hard here this am, I’ll be riding this pm.

[ThreeFigs]

The indoor where I board my gelding is a combination of sand, crumb rubber and granite “pebbles”. Very nice.

[lstevenson]

@Beasmom;4714351

Was that footing rubber crumb? Just curious. I imagine crumbs would “roll” underfoot while shreds would lie flat & stable. I’m wondering if my “theory” is correct.

Wow. Wouldn’t pure rubber footing be hella expensive?

IIRC it was shredded. It was really nice if you were going slowly…like walking on a cloud. But at speed around corners it would give way and the horse’s feet would slide out from under them.

[ThreeFigs]

Huh. There goes THAT theory!

[Hermein]

When we were working to recover the hoofs/feet of a foundered horse, a hoof specialist recommended that we put in a path of pea gravel on which to walk the horse barefoot. Horse recovered*, and I found I liked to walk on it barefoot as well.

*Wasn’t the only thing we did.