[QUOTE=Eilsel;7994199]
I think it would be fine. Heaven forbid someone at a schooling show or riding a hunter might have to steer!![/QUOTE]
Have you seen a Hunter derby? Lots of steering. (And schooling shows not so much). But nice jab at hunters.
I don’t think an odd shaped ring is necessarily always a bad thing but when you start adding in a slope, I don’t think it will appeal to many for a horse show unless there are really no other options available.
It’s really easy and cheap to rent a skid loader and cut out some slope and move that dirt to low side. I would consider doing that for a few hundred bucks to get a consistant arena
There is a farm in my area who have two arenas – one with 3 sides and one with 5. I haven’t been there personally but from what I hear (and see of their marketing!) they are a top outfit in our locale. I can PM you the satellite maps link if you like.
Land is at a premium out here so there is no room to waste. I’ve watched some of their sales videos and the irregular shape did not seem to be a problem.
Not a hunter, but I used to visit a farm that had an arena/jumping field shaped like you describe. It was a grass field, not an arena with footing. I don’t remember if they held hunter shows there, but they did showjumping. IIRC it was larger than the space you describe.
It wasn’t a problem to have uneven sides, exactly, but it looked weird. I mean, it was a gorgeous place and a cool place to ride, but if anything was set up in it that had to appear square or even, it gave the appearance of being crooked due to the set-up not being parallel with the fence. They had a dressage arena set up there at one time and in order to get the arena set up squarely, it had to be cock-eyed to the entrance gate so that one had to approach the center line indirectly. Or else if it was set up to allow for a straight center line and the appearance of being “square” to the spectators, the space itself was a sort of irregular parallelogram such that one couldn’t do a correct circle. Aside from being rather hilarious as a member of the ground crew, listening to competitors lament their unusually lopsided circles, I would expect it was frustrating from their point of view! It might not be quite such an issue with a typical hunter course, but something to consider. Fun for hunter derbies and such but it might create an optical illusion if the rider is expecting to ride a “straight” line down one side.
A friend of mine has a non-rectangular arena. The long side along the barn is the straight side. The opposite side of the ring is narrower near short end of the ring where the gate is due to driveway and then widens once past the driveway area. She places cones down that side to give a visual line. The extra area on the side is great if you are having a lesson or clinic as riders can stand on that area and not get in the way.
Thanks, all.
Ill start taking bids for the project this spring; if the general consensus is that the best spot for the arena is indeed along this angled side of the property (my visuals may be way off); I’ll do the string and stake idea; thank you to the poster who mentioned it. No reason I couldn’t actually haul a horse there and ride it a bit, see how it feels.
Just FYI, arena won’t be unusually sloped; was meaning in general it’d nice to find land that slopes naturally towards where you want it to drain, minimizing excavation work.
when I ride in an arena I try NOT to ride the perimeter. I do serpentines, circles, figure eights, squiggles whatever. Our property has a weird turnout area Think of a rectangle with a square intruding into one corner. At first I felt like we needed to move the fencing (which would be a major pain due to posts sunk into giant concrete anchors) but now I feel like it is just another way to ride creatively.
Your proposed outdoor ring is almost identical to my existing outdoor ring. Again, a space issue, this was the area that was available. My irregular corners are rounded. It works fine for me, and the clinics we run here. No shows, simply due to lack of interest in this area. I’ve been to shows with similar types of rings, it’s not a big deal. If there is lots of room (not cramped) it doesn’t matter.
I don’t know the dimensions, but if you look at this aerial photo of one of the facilities that holds outdoor hunter/jumper shows here, you’ll see both regular rectangles and then some “odd” shapes. They seem to do just fine.
Thanks so much everyone! And hi Nancy! Hope winter treated you alright up there.
Thanks for the picture horsepoor, the arena on the bottom right especially looks familiar. Sounds like overall, if space is adequate, the shape won’t be a deal breaker for too many people as long as we are thoughtful and considerate with the course designs. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel at all, but it’s always nice to have something insignificent but that helps stand you out in a crowd. Plus, we are really hoping to be able to put in a 60 x 120 or 70 x 140 indoor so we can have the traditional option too if we don’t use it for warm-up.
Can I just say, among horse people, how excited I am go be in this position of being able to build and expand?! Dream come true although not quite set in stone yet. Just fun to think about and plan for.
Thanks again all, hope you have a great weekend.
