Hi - just saw your post - we are just actually getting our skid steer to do the arena and did the sand analysis with Premeir. Our original arena had zero base and drainage and dumped low quality sand which we now have to remove and replace. We talked to Chris there who has been very helpful and are about to buy there plan for $1,500 and then one of the fiber blends to mix with our sand. Any concerns/warnings/or cheers would be most appreciated! I am a small ranch that will just have a few boarders - my own horses are still at training barn in Malibu because we are jumping there and it has Nike footing. May leave my big horse there and just bring my pony home to hang with the boarders after summer when my kid goes back to school and has less time to ride. Anyway - not planning on being a training barn but had too many of my horses retired early and permanently injured at local barns with bad sand only footing so promised myself i would never do the same at home. Won’t jump big at home - arena too small. Anyway would love insight on Premeir!
I had an absolutely horrible experience w Premier. It’s a lot to type, but in a nutshell, I did everything they asked me to do…with an unusable indoor for a year. I had it hauled out and dumped. I bought the sand and fiber they recommended (they said my sand was unusable) and hired a professional arena installer to put it in. After he mixed it, the horses sank up to their coronary band. I called-they said I didn’t mix it enough and to remix. So I paid him to come back and remix. They still sank. I called…Chris told me we diluted it and I needed to buy more. So I did…and repeated all the above. Now the horses either sank or tripped. I called…they said it needed more water. I paid a hauler to put 3500 gallon of water in it. No help. Then they told me I needed a THIRD kind of fiber to fill in the soft spots. So…I got that fiber and it didn’t help. Then they decided I bought the wrong kind of sand. Um…no, if it was wrong, it was their fault as the sources and arranged the hauling. They decided I needed yet a finer silica sand so I got that. We could never get it to mix in or get it out of the air. You could taste it and feel it in yours eyes. I asked them to come and look at it- they said no. Silica sand is very bad for your health, so I dumped it. They are horrible in my opinion. I now have limestone screenings mixed w something like a bluestone product and we all love it. No one would ride on the Premier product.
The pieces of the second fiber ranged in size from dime size to 3x5 pieces. I crawled around on the footing cutting those up by hand. It was ProTec. The first fiber was arena aid. The third was something that looked like cut up bath mats.
