From: Ed
Dear Jessica, my wife and I are both big fans of yours and we figure you're the right one to advise us on a construction question. We're getting set to build a round pen just south of our barn. We've talked about it considerable over the winter, and we know tha's the best place to put it because the whole area drains real well. We plan to level the spot and have a couple inches of limestone screenings put in for footing. I don't figure we'll need much more than that, and if we do, well the quarry is just down the road from us about twelve miles. We already know that we're going to build the pen 70' across so that we can use it for loping and riding, not just for fooling around with horses on the ground. You taught us that, thanks.
Now here's the question we need you to answer, well I guess it's two questions. First, should we build the pen with walls that go straight up and down, or with walls that slant out? Second, should we build it solid to the top, or solid for the first four or five feet, or open, like a tall rail fence? We've been arguing some about this. I say we should build it open, because it gets cruel hot here in summer (West Texas) and we need all the breezes we can catch. My wife says she'd feel safer if the walls are solid up to about four-five feet, she thinks the rest of the pen will still catch a good breeze, and the rider will be up where it's open. My son is getting involved in a lot of natural horsemanship type of things, and he wants me to build the pen with solid walls up to seven or eight feet so the horses won't get distracted and will keep their focus on us. There's no way I'm building more than one pen here, so we've agreed to let you settle the argument for us. What do you think is the best way to go here? Thanks a lot. Ed
We have hot summers too, so I know exactly what you mean about wanting to catch any breeze you can catch. On a hot, damp day, a breeze can make all the difference between working in comfort and working in extreme discomfort.
A pen with walls that go up to about 4' can be useful, especially if it's a pen with walls that slant out. If you're riding in a pen or an indoor arena, slanting walls, or at least slanting kickboards to about 4', can keep your legs from having unpleasant encounters with the walls. Horses do tend to hug those rails, and green horses haven't learned (yet) to allow for the extra body width created by the addition of a saddle and rider. They'll get as close to the rail as they would without a rider - at which point your knee or foot and your pen wall may have a close encounter of the unpleasant kind. Slanted kickboards prevent this, but if they only go to about 4' and the pen is open above that height, you will still be able to benefit from breezes. I don't think I'd take the solid part of the walls any higher than that, though. Your wife is right, the rider will be high enough to catch a breeze if there's one blowing, but the horse needs the breeze too! Especially if you'll be teaching your horses to carry their heads low when they're under saddle, those horses will be doing most of their breathing with their heads nearer the ground. It would be nice to let them catch the breeze, too.
My personal preference is for pens that are as open as possible, both for the sake of air movement, and because I don't mind distractions from outside the pen. In fact, I welcome those distractions. Part of my job as a trainer is to teach horses to keep their focus on me, regardless of what may be going on elsewhere. My current round pen is located on a hill, with ten-mile views in three directions. There is always something to look at. I use this pen for turnout as well as for training. When the pen is being used for turnout, the horses enjoy looking at trains, cars on distant roads, and farm machinery in the fields around us. When the pen is being used for training, the horses are working, and they put their focus where it belongs, which is on me, NOT on passing trains, cars, and tractors. I don't see round-pen work as an end in itself. Done well, it can help prepare a horse for work outside the round pen.
I wouldn't want a pen with high, solid walls, for a number of different reasons. One is that horses that are started in high-walled or enclosed and covered arenas can have quite a shock when they move outside and are suddenly confronted with all the distractions in the world. Another is that in a high-walled pen, the heat and dust can quickly rise to unacceptable levels, and working in discomfort isn't fun for horses or for humans.
Will your pen be for work only, or for turnout as well? If you use it for turnout, you might prefer to keep it as open as possible, for maximum ventilation - and to give the horses things to look at, so that they won't invent their own forms of entertainment. Bored horses are more likely to try to chew through those high walls. If the high walls keep out the breeze and hold the heat, you may not be able to use the pen at all - for turnout or riding - during really hot weather. There's another advantage to open walls, too - you can monitor what goes on in the pen, even if you're some distance away from it. That can be very useful whether someone's riding in the pen, or whether a couple of horses are turned out in it. With a closed pen, you'd need to be inside it to know exactly what was going on in there.
One very nice structure I've seen at several farms and would love to build for myself is a covered round pen. The one I liked best was quite attractive, but all of them were built on the same, very functional basic design - not a pen with high walls and a roof, like a breeding shed, but a full-size, working round pen with low or open walls with posts holding a high roof to cover the entire structure: Imagine a very large, round, open, airy gazebo for horses.
Given your location and the fact that there will be three humans (and how many horses?) using the pen on a daily basis, this sort of structure might work well for you. If the summer sun really hammers down at mid-day, the compbination of a roof and open walls could provide welcome shade in addition to necessary ventilation. You might want to discuss this idea with your wife and son. Since all three of you need to agree here, you may as well consider ALL of the available options while you're still discussing the design of your round pen. After all, it's a big project and something you're all going to use and enjoy for a long, long time.
Jessica
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