(This is not directed at you - you ask to enter, as you said - ) Sorry, but why should the onus be on those already working in the arena to be aware of you entering? (Do you drive like that?) No matter that the gates are “well placed”, calling out “door” is common curtesy.
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Here arenas tend to be solid walled/doored and separate from the barn. It is basic etiquette to call “Door!” prior to opening the door to enter the arena. Waiting for acknowledgement depends on the individual barn.
I’ve found the horses hear the call even if the human doesn’t (ie. farther away from the door). Waiting for acknowledgement can leave someone standing in miserable weather as wind, rain, snow, etc tend to increase the ambient noise in the arena. If the rider is close enough for the opening door to be an issue they’re close enough to hear the call and reply to wait a moment.
Where the process is call, wait a couple of seconds, then open the door the horses expect the door to open after the “Door!” call. Some horses will get a bit antsy if the door doesn’t open.
I once boarded with someone who start calling “Door!” 20’ from the barn (barn door - though they did it at the arena too) door and had called “Door!” about six times before they got inside. Just a little excessively unnecessary…
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This is a rule for my barn’s indoor ring. We either yell “door!” Or “entering!”. Outdoor arena this isn’t required and no one does it.
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Not sure if this is as common but at my barn we do say “corner!” when approaching the outdoor because you can’t see people coming from far off.
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The problem is, if someone forgets to call door, the horses in the arena may spook.
I am getting really, really tired of people being so afraid their horse will spook. Maintaining the “Cathedral of Silence” does horses and riders no favors.
There’s a boarder at my barn who “reserves” the arena every afternoon for 2 hours… so she can lunge and ride her horse for 45 minutes max without the chance of him spooking. Said horse is NOT spooky. I have seen him prick his ears at something questionable, but never spook. Mine, OTOH, is spooky and I view it as my responsibility to manage that. (These days she rarely does anything other than stop and snort, but when she was younger… oh my.) I’ve been yelled at for leaving my bridle on a chair by the arena door, riding past the side door even though I always call door, riding on the driveway on the other side etc. all because someone else’s horse “might spook.”
Barn manager can’t do anything and barn owner won’t because this boarder has a lot of say.
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I think there is a big difference between calling door so someone does not get hurt by something that startles even humans who do not see it coming (calling door before swinging open the door of the ring) and having to have the barn be silent while you ride so your horse does not spook.
Door is a good courtesy. Having the barn have to be silent while you ride is just crazy.
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This reminds me of how, at a boarding barn with an indoor, I once yelled “Door!”, waited a few seconds and swung it open…to several little voices yelling “Noooo!” in unison.
My gelding and me barely jumped out of the way of 3 loose ponies that happily galloped outside and went straight for the fields.
Turns out, three kids had, without supervision or permission, taken their ponies into the indoor and “free lunged” (read - chased them around loose) for a TikTok video…
The kids’ drive home was not a very pleasant one. 
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Sort of related to horses becoming uneasy upon hearing “Door” too far in advance of the door opening:
Our indoor has floor-to-ceiling sliding doors that open to the outside at one short end, and a set of doors cut into the kickboards that open into the aisle of the main barn (set on a long end in the corner closest to the big doors). The big doors are almost always left open to help mitigate dust. If they’re ever closed, people will go in through the barn to investigate before opening them. Immediately outside lies a grassy strip about 50’ wide, and then the driveway and parking area for the larger barn. About 1/3 mile down the driveway are the outdoor arena and ride out, so chances are that at least one horse/rider will pass going that direction while you’re riding in the indoor.
Anyway, the sight lines for both doors are such that I find I see/become aware of horses and people approaching long before they announce themselves. I never realized how far horses can apparently see out the big door, though, until the time I was practicing a test with the Dressage King in there. We were on a circle at the trot with a nice inside bend when he abruptly lifted his head to the outside as we passed the open door. I vibrated my fingers on the inside rein and said “Pay attention! There’s nothing out there!” He obliged. As we tracked towards the opposite wall to finish the circle, the trainer’s gelding suddenly burst (trainerless) in the open door. He seemed surprised to see us, but quickly hightailed it through the arena and out the small door into the barn, and put himself back in his stall. I promptly freaked out and went looking for her – moments earlier I’d seen them walk past on their way down to the outdoor. 
Turned out he’d pulled away from her while she was fielding a phone call at the entrance to the outdoor and run back up to the barn.
It fascinated me how much further in advance his approach registered to my horse than it did me. He must’ve heard trainer exclaiming at her horse or his footfalls from way out in the distance. Meanwhile, I heard nothing because it seemed to me like that horse suddenly teleported into the doorway!
eta: @trubandloki, I agree. The TRT method guy did a funny ad recently where you see him running around the barn shushing everyone and then right as he goes to put his toe in the stirrup someone cheerfully bangs into the indoor yelling “DOOOOOR!”
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I will crack the solid door to the indoor, take a quick peek, and holler ‘Door!’ if anyone is riding.
The door is in the middle of the long side, so there are lots of blind spots where you can’t see an oncoming rider. Cracking the door lets me listen for footsteps and to give people a chance to respond if they need me to wait a moment before entering with the beast. As I open the door completely, I also check the locations of all the other riders in the ring and wait for any close by to either go by or alter course.
There has been more than one occasion where the door has swung open when I’ve been coming down the long side and been about 2 strides away from it and a person has stepped into the indoor right in front of me. My current horse and my previous one have not appreciated surprise like this and tend to shoot left or right without regard to the rider (me) on their back, requiring me to rapidly change my focus to simply staying on.
I prefer folks yell ‘Door’ and then WAIT FOR A RESPONSE and then CAREFULLY open the door and check again. Sometimes they don’t yell loud enough to be heard through a 5" thick door and can still surprise you.
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I was trained from a young age to yell “gate” or “door” when entering an arena. I think the instructor first wanted to instill good safe manners. I also think it helped her when organizing a group lesson to know when the straggler was about to enter! If there is a sightline, yelling before entering lets the riders inside know that you are coming in and to adjust their paths, since some folks can hang at the gate with their horse as well. Most importantly in an indoor like the current one I use, there is a solid wall and door and no way to see the other side. Yelling and waiting for a response again lets the rider adjust their path so nobody gets t-boned! I did have to remind one fellow boarder to wait for a response (or at least crack the door and peek first!) as she yelled door and immediately threw open the door and came in with her horse right in front of me trotting on my horse. Accident narrowly avoided!
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One day, several horses started neighing in their boxes, for no apparent reason, then quietened again. About five minutes later the BO turned into the gates in her vehicle. By mysterious means, the horses had identified her some considerable distance away. The stables were in an urban setting and traffic noise was constant.
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If the BO was within two kilometers, horses can hear very well that far.
A fellow had this young stallion with his geldings, then decided to put him in a trap about 2 km away, across a very busy expressway.
At first, the stallion would walk the fence every so often and nicker and all that distance away the other horses, lined along their fence, clear over that distance and the expressway’s noise, would answer him and they carried a conversation.
I would guess your horses could hear the BO coming once it was close enough and followed the sound getting closer until BO arrived.
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I don’t think it’s about spooking. It’s about smashing. I’m the one who got T-boned 
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Smashing what, though? A lot of the stuff she’s complaining about is stuff where I’m not even in the arena with her! No one else in the barn can have the arena all to themselves just because they say so. And she specifically says she’s afraid her horse will spook.
I have never T boned anyone while riding. I have been T-boned twice by a loose horse… but is getting T-boned while riding really that common?
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If you are talking about 2 horses that are being ridden in an arena, they can crash head on to each other if both riders are looking at the horses head and not at the horizon.
2 horses also crash if someone goes into the arena without permission or announcing it and not being heard as the rider is hard of hearing and the the rider is riding there at that point of time.
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The rider if she wants 2 hours all to her self should be paying extra. If not this is a very elitist attitude.
If they are not paying anything then anyone should be able to reserve it for 2 hours. See how long that works for!
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Hint: she owns 1/3 of the horses boarded at the barn. She only rides one of them, though.
Yes, I get that… I got thrown against a wall when my mare spooked at a horse coming toward her. (Stayed on, though.) That was about 12 years ago. I figured out early on that it was on me to keep her away from other horses, and since she doesn’t want them anywhere near her, it wasn’t that difficult. (Well, except for the loose ones… including one g-damn Haflinger that got loose and galloped across the arena, taking a couple of jumps along the way, and crashed into her. She exploded, the Haffie fled… and then turned around and came back at us AGAIN. She tried to kick him, but didn’t connect. Naughty thing! It took about 30 minutes to get my mare settled afterwards.
The current issue though… my mare isn’t even in the arena.
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Whilst I think your lady is nuts, QuietAnn, I do think it behooves us all to be aware of other people and their vulnerabilities, just out of kindness and common sense. that’s just reasonable reciprocal human behavior.
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I used to board with a woman that expected the entire barn to fall silent when she got her horse out. One day she was riding in the arena that she had commandeered and a small group of us were talking way up at the top of the hill where the tack sheds were. She rode for awhile, then got off and stormed up to the barn, put her horse away and left shortly afterward. We found out later she had bitched to the BM about how our “noise” was distracting her horse and she needed it to be quiet for him. I think the BM was tired of her and told her if she wanted it to be absolutely silent then go ride in a cemetery. Boarder moved a week later. And is still moving. In a two year period - 11 barn changes.
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