From: Peter
Dear Jessica, Last week you discussed the size of a round pen. Now I am wondering what would be the minimum size for a riding arena. We recently moved to a new home with a 1 acre of pasture. We would like to put up a riding arena. As our place is quite small, we want to keep as much pasture as possible, but also want an arena which is large enough to ride comfortably. I think this depends on the size of the horse also (we have a small pony :13.3). Can you give us some advice before we make our decision? Thanks! Lisa & Peter
Here's some general information. You don't mention what your preferred equestrian activities are, but here are some arena sizes that correspond to particular sports.
If dressage is your passion, then you'll want either a small arena (20m x 40m, or roughly 66' x 132') or a standard (full-sized) arena (20 m x 60 m, or roughly 66' x 198'). Jumping arenas are generally considerably larger. You can drive a single horse or pony in a standard dressage arena, although you might prefer to have a little more space.
Creating a small, scaled-down arena because your pony is only 13.3hh might appear to make sense, but before you do that, please read the rest of this letter.
If you're absolutely certain that you will only ever have ponies on your property, you can put in pony-sized stalls and a pony-sized arena - never pony-sized fencing, though, as inch for inch, ponies are usually far better jumpers than horses! But - are you quite, QUITE certain that you will never need to accomodate or ride a full-sized horse?
If you have the choice, it's generally best to err on the large size when you're building for horses. This is true whether you are building a fence or stalls, constructing an arena, or buying a trailer. There are certain Laws of Perversity that seem to rule - or twist - all equine-related plans. It's more or less a "given" that people who want to prepare a place for one small pony will inevitably end up with two ponies, or a pony and a horse, or - a few years from now - two horses. And not only two horses, but two LARGE horses. If you build horse-sized stalls and a standard arena, and then keep only ponies, there's no harm done - a small horse or pony can be quite happy in a large space, and your pony certainly won't ever go lame from being worked on a too-LARGE circle. But trying to fit a large horse into a small stall, or ride one in a small arena, is much less successful. Sometimes people who begin with a small horse or pony find to their great dismay that their NEXT equine is too large to fit comfortably in the stalls or trailer that they own - or that the new horse can manage only four canter strides down the long side of the very small arena that they built for the pony. That's why I would advise you to think hard before you build. Look ahead to a time when you may have one or more larger animals - it may happen sooner than you imagine.
I well remember the dismay of a friend of mine, many years ago, who had always owned Arabians, adored Arabians, had recently purchased a new trailer (Arabian-sized, of course!) and then fell suddenly, madly in love with a large Thoroughbred. He bought the horse, and then couldn't take it home with him, as the poor thing couldn't possibly squash it into his nice, almost-new, Arabian-sized trailer. He "knew" when he purchased the trailer that he would always own small horses and never need to put a larger horse in his trailer... A kind person with a larger trailer took the horse home for him that afternoon, but later that week, my friend had to purchase a new trailer to go with his new horse, which made a considerable dent in the household budget. If his wife hadn't also fallen in love with the new horse instantly, the strain on the budget might have put a strain on the marriage as well.
So - think ahead, and do remember that it's very convenient to set up your facilities so that a horse of just about any size can be accomodated. It's also useful to keep in mind that although this may, at the moment, seem to be the place where you want to live out your life, sometimes plans change, and if you were offered a fabulous position somewhere else, you might find it easier to sell your current home if the facilities were able to accomodate horses as well as ponies. The incremental costs are not frighteningly high - once you've decided to invest in building ANY stalls or putting in ANY arena, you may as well make them full-size - and the potential benefit in terms of flexibility, convenience, and resale value would make the extra investment worthwhile.
I can't really say much about the pasture/arena situation, as so much will depend on the dimensions of your property. If your acre is narrow rectangle of land, you'll have a more difficult time fencing it and constructing an easily-accessed arena - if it's a perfect square, both of those tasks will be easier. Before you dig even a single post hole, measure everything ten times. Sketch the property as accurately as possible, write in all the dimensions of the various bits of land, then make fifty copies of the sketch and use coloured pencils to draw in all the possibilities you are considering. Among other things, you'll want to consider how near the pasture is to the house - and to the road - and to a source of water.
In any case, with only one acre to serve as pasture, drylot, and arena, you will have a difficult time maintaining a reasonable amount of grass unless you are very careful to divide the pasture into sections, use them in rotation, and keep the pony off the pasture whenever weather conditions make it likely that the wet ground would be torn up by the pony's hooves. On the plus side, however, your pony will probably be very happy in a large drylot - many ponies are "air ferns" and gain weight even on very limited pasture, and it's better for the ponies to be outdoors as much as possible, moving freely, even WITHOUT grass, than to be allowed a few hours of grazing each day and then to be confined for the rest of the time.
If you plan the positions of your fencing and gates carefully, you may be able to place your arena IN one of the sections of pasture - the arena can take the place of a drylot - and that will allow you to use it for turnout on days when the pony or horse can't be allowed on the grass. A separate arena with an attractive, low, dressage-arena style fence is useless for turnout unless the entire arena - fence and all - is enclosed inside a larger, more significant fence. On a small piece of land, it's important to think about all of these things in advance, and analyze the land itself - soil type, drainage, etc. - so as to make the best use of every single inch.
Again, as a homeowner you should think about what you want for YOUR use now, of course, but also keep in mind both (a) future use, and (b) those choices that will make your property more valuable and appealing, just in case you should ever want to sell it.
One more thing - if possible, try to live in the new home for several months or even a year before you add fencing and horse facilities. This will give you time to make and revise your plans, and time to make the best decision, and let you learn about your property at the same time. The more you learn about what it's like to live on the property, the wiser your eventual decisions will be. Don't try to save money by moving your horse onto your property immediately - you may find, later, that you didn't chooose the right place for your barn, fences, gates, and arena, simply because at that time, you didn't have enough information to make the best choice. If you can bear to live there for a year before you begin fencing and arena construction, you will be infinitely better-informed about many things you may not even have considered yet: rain, soil drainage, winter snowfall and snow accumulation areas, and the prevailing winds at various times of year.
Whatever you do, good luck and congratulations - there's nothing quite like setting up your own home, watching the fence go up, and knowing that your horses will soon be coming to live with you. It's really very nice to know that if you want to check on your horses at midnight, all you have to do is walk out the door of your home - and you can even do it in your pyjamas. ;-)
Jessica
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