Looking for advice on this topic.
I am currently looking to switch barns and one I have found with great training and care has no indoor. I’ve never been at a barn without an indoor. I live south-east PA so winters here are extremely rough. What are people’s experiences without an indoor for winter. Thank you!
I grew up in New Jersey and had no indoor. I trail rode. Our rings froze by the end of December at the latest and didn’t thaw out until basically March. So everyone followed a few options: don’t ride for several months, move to a barn with an indoor for the winter, or trail ride. Or hope for snow and ride on the snow. I boarded at a county owned stable in the middle of a park/reservation so we had like 12 miles of bridle paths which were all pretty smooth. so even if they were frozen they were an even surface unlike the (poorly maintained) arenas. I had a really hardy pony as a kid and would just ride out on trails and trot and canter on the less frozen parts.
I wouldn’t call SE PA winters extremely rough. If you have access to a sand/all weather ring with lights and mostly ride late afternoon/ early evening it will likely not be a huge deal at all. It’s rare for it to be frozen 24/7. Just wear layers and use a quarter sheet. If you have to ride in a field it means you will do more walking but many horses really benefit from the break.
I agree with @Highflyer .
If your area is prone to deep snow and lots of ice then your chances of riding outside will be restricted to walking.
The toughest part I have found is actually making myself go out there and do it.
That was my old area. I grew up with no indoor. We rode almost all winter, regardless. We had a wonderful ring that was maintained and dragged.
Now I’m in the MW (for now). I trailer to an indoor 1nce a week in really frozen conditions. No dragging my ring will soften it if I don’t prep it properly (I didn’t put it in- I am just maintaining what is here for now). However, dragging during a freeze (pre freeze) and after a snow and preparing for it (learned from the barn I grew up riding in) keeps me riding at home most of the winter.
It can be done.
Our winters aren’t normally too bad so as said before I could usually just wait until the afternoon to ride when the sun had thawed the arena enough to work in it. When it got too cold and it never thawed I would walk in the fields, on the roads or the trails (anything smoother) I was able to pull my girls shoes so that when it snowed we could ride without it packing in and she seemed to do better on the icy patches on the trails without them. It’s amazing how good walking is for them and it was a nice brain break for both of us those few weeks a year.
I spent my entire junior years at a lesson barn without an indoor, we managed just fine but of course I was a kid. I’m in New York so its doable although I don’t think I would want to do that now that I’m older.
I also was in your shoes - always had an indoor, and my current barn is the first to not have one. In the Mid-Atlantic, I have found we can ride pretty consistently through December, and Jan-Feb can be questionable. Lots of walking, dressage work, bareback with blankets walks, etc. The flatwork (even just at the walk/trot) is great for the horses, and is a welcomed break from jumping, I think. By March, I find we’re typically unfrozen and starting to get back to regular workloads just in time for the spring shows. If you are concerned about losing 4-8 weeks of consistent jumping if we have a bad winter, maybe find a place to tow in once a week. Otherwise, embrace cross-training with open arms 
I look at winter riding as another adventure! Over the years I’ve perfected my outdoor riding wear —trout fishing socks (like you wear under waders), Mountain Horse Boots RimFrost, Under-Armour+4 long underwear under my breeches [for hunting/sitting still in cold], Marino wool base layer shirt under my fleece jacket, Heavy Hooded Winter Coat ( I think mine is Eddie Bauer), scarf over that, and warm gloves (gloves vary --up to battery heated for really cold). I provide nothing for the horse --he’s out 24/7 so has a huge coat. I ride most days --even went out at -13 just so I could say I did --I use the snow for exercises --easy to see spiral in/spiral out in new snow. I check out what’s been in the field since I was last out, and generally trot/canter for 30-45 min minimum. I don’t do “serious training” in the winter since I fox hunt on weekends and that pretty much takes all me extra horse-cash. I draw the line at icy footing or downpour --I don’t like to clean my tack. Light rain, I’ll put on my Aussie --but downpour --nope. My husband always says, “No bad weather, just bad clothes!” Personally, I think the Fleece Jacket (North Face) is the key --never been cold while wearing it.
“No indoor” was the compromise I made with the barn where I board–there’s always something, and I love the training and care, so I can do without. Both rings are sand-based, so hold up fairly well in the weather as long as it’s not far below freezing for multiple days. Trainer puts a lot of the jumps away during the winter, so we do a lot of flatwork, and give the horses a bit of a break, which I think keeps them happier and sounder.
Here in MD we did have some exceptionally cold weather last winter, cold enough that I wouldn’t have ridden even with an indoor. Mostly I just layer myself up, and keep a quarter sheet on the horse, and we do fine. I’ve actually missed it more this summer, with the monsoon season we’ve had, than I have over the winter.
I keep my horses at home and an indoor arena is not currently in the cards, I live in SE Michigan so we definitely have cold winters… I thought last winter I would tough it out and ride outside… resigning myself to just doing hacks around the property ( we have 15 acres and mowed path all around the outside of our square acreage). Sadly i forgot how windy it gets in our area. With no corn fields surrounding anymore it was just brutal and the ground was just too hard and slick for anything more than walking… which I chickened out and Was not about to ask an OTTB to tolerate the really windy cold conditions. He is usually really good about wind, but i Just didn’t want to risk a spook on hard possibly icy surfaces.
It sucked not riding all winter, but he didn’t seem worse for it and we were able to start riding again in March.
Though I did feel like we missed out on building on all that we learned and accomplished in the summer.
This year i was lucky enough to find a barn with a 60x120 indoor just 4.5 miles from my house. So he will be headed there for the winter. I don’t mind riding in the cold but at my age (46) i do this because it’s fun and riding in horribly windy conditions on potentially iffy footing isn’t fun to me.
If you are an every day rider with specific training goals for you and your horse, I would hold out for a place with an indoor. If you’re a more casual rider who doesn’t mind extended periods of time off and not jumping as much (if at all) throughout the winter, and they have great, well-maintained footing, it may be just fine.
I personally wouldn’t winter at a place without an indoor, but I’m from further north, so I’d lose most of the year without one.
I agree with @blondewithchrome. Four years in Philly boarding in S. Jersey we could ride outside all but 3-4 weeks in late Jan/Feb, unless a polar vortex, sand based. I’m in S. central PA now. Most years ok til Christmas but inside til late March. Some of that time still a bit of outside hacking. Doable unless uber competitive aspirations that mean you must jump those weeks.
Don’t just ask us, ask the barn owner and/or other boarders. If they drag the ring (and in extreme cases plow and/or salt) it should be fine, especially with lights.
Still no indoor up here, but I keep getting older and whinier about it. One of these years…
I think this is not just dependent on the weather but quite a bit on your schedule. A couple of replies have been from people who can ride in the afternoon - but if you have a job that prevents you from getting to the barn until 7pm - then even if you have lights, even the best footing can already be starting to freeze at that time without the sun. In my opinion, having a flexible schedule is a key to making it work without the indoor - so you can ride more around the weather vs around your schedule. It’s super frustrating when it’s dry all day then starts to rain when I leave work at 5pm… 
I’m in SE PA too. Last winter was terrible. That being said, if you love everything about where you are except the lack of indoor, I would think long and hard about your priorities. Having an indoor doesn’t help if you find yourself worrying about everything else about your horse! For me personally, I’m starting to realize that I’d rather my horse gets turned out more if it comes at the cost of me riding less in the winter. I think that’s better for my horses - and it’s honestly less stressful for me to know I don’t HAVE to get there to ride when it’s 15 degrees because at least they were turned out for the day.
ETA: it also depends on your horse! If you have a steady eddie who doesn’t care about the cold and/or is good if you ride once a week, then you’ll do much better without an indoor than if you have a horse that NEEDS to be ridden daily or risk your life that once a week that you can get on because of the footing/weather/etc.
Don’t think OPs area is all that terrible the vast majority of the year but it is very dependent on specific conditions, specific riders, specific horses and what kind of riding, serious work or basic conditioning.
Ice is a bigger threat then snow or cold safety wise, especially nice, soft, level snow over wicked churned up frozen mud. That’s a vet bill easy. Make sure you know what’s under that nice pillow of snow.
While a nice, relaxing hack in fresh snow over known ground on a sunny 25f day with no wind is winter riding it’s not what everybody deals with so it’s kind of hard to generalize. Nobody has mentioned the horse either. If you got one that gets jazzed up in cold, windy weather with icy turnouts and there’s no safe place to lunge the boogers out? Or you need to get regular, serious jump schools in ? Florida gets more appealing. So does the tradition of giving them the winter off.
OP should be fine IF her horse is accepting and there is a well maintained all weather arena ( sand is fine if it gets dragged). Safe place to hack out would be good too. Be sure to ask about winter ring maintainance. Don’t recall most of that area being particularly prone to long bouts of icy, windy, well below freezing weeks on end so weather can be worked around. Most of the time.
I’m in in northeast MA and there’s no indoor where I have my horse.
I am an everyday type (well, ok, the lad does get a day off!) of rider and ride out in the elements but at night so it makes it even more character building I guess. During the week I basically hack out around the barn but I have a trailer so I can truck out on the weekends to do things and I’ve been doing this for quite a few years now. I will admit, it does have it’s moments where I whine to myself that an indoor would be nice but I think in the long run, the hacking out is good for my guy and he’s pretty happy where he is.
I just bundle up and get out there. My guy is barefoot so if it’s icy, I can put studded hoof boots on (I have two types of studs so I do have some flexibility) if the conditions are iffy.
Meh, builds character…yeh, that’s it. :lol:
I think a successful winter without an indoor is primarily based of adjusting your expectations and approaching the season with flexibility in mind.
I live in northern CO without an indoor. For the last couple of winters, the wind is more of a hindrance than cold or snow, although the last couple winters have been on the mild side. It’s also almost always sunny here, and the sun is warm, which keeps the arena more thawed than it would be otherwise.
I work from home, so I have the flexibility to ride during the daylight hours. If you don’t have that flexibility and your outdoor isn’t lighted, you’ll want to plan on either finding another barn to board at for the winter or only riding on the weekends if you’ll get home from work after dark. Not much to be done about that.
But if you can ride during the day, you just have to be willing to bundle up, longe if they’re fresh, and be willing to be flexible. You may have a week you can’t ride due to weather and then two weeks you can. I shift from my normal “I need to ride 5-6 days a week” to “I will ride when the weather lets me.” That keeps me from being frustrated when I can’t ride. As others have mentioned, sometimes just doing walk and trot work can be beneficial.
Learn your footing and what preparation or maintenance will keep it as rideable as possible. Here in CO, the sun is warm enough that usually by mid day it’s thawed enough at least for a light ride, assuming we aren’t in a really cold snap.
I also always plan to give my mare at least a month or 6 weeks of a true vacation. One, I think it’s just good for them. Two, during the holidays or during when the weather is really crappy, it takes the pressure off. A little time off is good for everyone.
Before the boarding barn I kept my horse at in New York had an indoor, I’d take periodic lessons on schoolies at a local riding school with an indoor to keep myself somewhat sharp. I refused to move him there, however, because they had shitty turnout. He enjoyed a long leisurely winter of bareback toddles around the property and zero expectations.
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