Research indicates that working horses on different surfaces is good for their overall soundness. Riding on slopes, grass, roads, beaches anywhere is fine. It is also good for the horse’s mind to be in different environments. Personally, I would be cautious about riding dressage regularly in a deep surface suitable for reining but occasionally shouldn’t be a problem. Just be very observant about how your horse reacts to the different surfaces, warm up carefully and adjust the work you do to fit the circumstances.
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Riding over a variety of terrains is good. All my dressage horses go cross-country, back country trails, and road work. My dressage training is not done on deep footing of any type. Training dressage movements on deep unstable sand is setting the horse up for soft tissue injuries. There is a reason why different disciplines use different depths and mixtures of footings.
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There’s dressage, and then there’s DRESSAGE. First level and below I don’t think the footing matters much because you aren’t asking for real sit.
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Footing absolutely matters regardless of level.
Hands down the field. Classical dressage originates in the field. The differing terrain and hills can be used to your advantage. I’ve done it for decades because the horses enjoy it so much more than drilling in an arena. Hills and inclines are a traditional tool used in classical dressage for building the horse’s ability to collect and sit.
If you do use an arena with deep footing, the horse needs to be exposed to the footing gradually and with care.
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This.
Fellow NorCal-er here. My arena tends towards the deep side in the summer because of lack of water for irrigation. All of my horses are well acclimated to it, so I do jump (under 2’6) and do dressage (mostly third level and below but also occasionally schooling individual GP movements) in this footing, but I’m careful to do the hard stuff first thing in the morning after a good water and drag when the footing is optimal. I’m careful to get them quite fit in this footing before asking for harder things.
I also ride in the field on the uneven grass. Some of it is safe for trotting/cantering, some of it has gopher holes and is only safe for walking.
I also trail ride on varying forms of crushed asphalt, base rock, and decomposed granite, and I have a second arena with excellent irrigation and GGT/sand that they get ridden in occasionally.
My philosophy is that riding on different surfaces is best, but when you’re riding on something that requires extra effort (sand, steep hills, uneven footing) make extra sure you’re conditioning them to it before you go all out.
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Wondering, how do you expose to footing gradually and with care if you are say, taking your horse to the beach for a fun day of riding in the waves?
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The sand on the beach varies depending where you are riding. The area near the water is usually quite nice to ride compared to loose dry sand which is typically in an arena. I’m sure you’ve experienced the difficulty of walking through dry, deep sand versus sand that is continually exposed to water with the waves.
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I’ll ride on hard footing before deep footing any day of the week.
But walking in deep footing is great exercise. So build up tolerance to both and used a bunch of varied surfaces.
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This made me laugh… I see a lot of their posts on FB which lead a lot of people to believe they have to spend a TON of money…
And of course it cant be done right unless they consulted 
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I would never, ever ride in an arena with deep footing. I would either work on the home space or maybe see if there are other places to haul into with better footing. One suspensory or ligament injury will forever change your perspective on footing forever. I would not risk it.
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We recently moved the horses to our new farm in Ocala. No arena, but the fields are fairly smooth and flat. We’re planning an arena within one of the pastures and will not put in “arena footing”, except to smooth out some of the bumps and holes that do exist. My husband, a master trainer from Germany, did most of his training and riding over the years in pastures, trails and the like.
As Warmblood1 remarked, “Classical dressage originates in the field”. My hubby would concur 100%!
Deep sand, you’re flirting with soft tissue injuries.
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I would be very circumspect about doing any significant work in the deep footing arena.
When you walk trot and canter in that arena, does the footing come up above the coronet band? If so, it would be a no for me. Obviously, the horses who are working in it are not all sustaining soft tissue injuries… But they are all conditioned for it, and the type of movement/sport they do will not be adversely affected.
For your horse to be safe in the arena, you would have to progressively condition your horse over three months with several times a week of careful slow work building tolerance for that type of footing. Then you have to also consider that deep and heavy footing will change your horses flight path and movement pattern.
Think about running on the beach. If you are running in deep loose sand, it’s a completely different experience than running on the damp sand closer to the water. Of course, you will get more tired quickly, but you will also change how you run.
I would initially personally vote for working in the field, but you’re right… When it gets super hot, that might be very hard and slippery. I live in southern Oregon which is essentially the same as California so I know what you’re talking about. I take it you don’t have irrigation?
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At the beach you only walk on the dunes and where the sand is deep. The fun trotting and galloping is done at the water line where the sand is hard packed - just like the people who walk and run along the beach do so at the water line.
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We work in the industry and I’ve had to “snooze” the page. I would unfollow it but I like to keep tabs on it because there is a lot of bad mouthing. The information is not wrong, but it’s delivered in a way that’s so complicated and condescending. People have budgets, too. Attacking people for not being able to spend 80k in material leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Thanks for coming to my TED talk lol
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Don’t want to high jack this thread, but I’d be interested to hear your take on building an arena on a budget if you would be willing to start a new thread!
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Yes please I second this!!
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I’ll third arena on a budget.
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I don’t know if this is what you were looking for, but I gave it a shot!
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Skip the deep footing option. I moved my horse to a new facility, which had an arena with deep footing. Long story short: ligament issues, long time to diagnose, long time to heal, long time to recover. Stay in the field. Too much risk. I lost about 2 years of riding and training on this. I did not understand the risk of the situation. Older but wiser now!
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I agree with everyone saying to either stay out of or limit your time in the deep sand arena. The barn where I board has a sand arena and there have been a lot of soundness issues among horses there including suspensory and sacroilliac injuries. It’s not worth it when you end up spending your time and money rehabing your horse. During the Olympics, the dressage commenter mentioned how firm the footing was and that you could hear the hoof hitting the ground. Riding on a variety of surfaces is good, just don’t overdue the time in sand.
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