Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Sand arena depth

From: Sherri

I board horses for a living and have a gorgeous barn and indoor arena. My problem is that I have about 2 foot of sand in the arena and the base of the arena is clay.

In the winter my boarders (dressage riders) complain the sand freezes, so we rake it and back blade it. That seems to keep them happy..........

Well......now that it is spring and everything is thawing my arena sand is wet. There is about 2 foot of sand in the arena and now they are complaining that it is too deep. (When I ride my horse in it, he sinks about 4 inches). They had their personal riding training out the other day and she would not give them a lesson as the arena was too deep.

Any advice would help.............

Thanks

SHerri

I can't make them happy......do you know how to dry the sand out so it hardens up?????

Hi Sherri! I hate to have to tell you this, but you need to take a LOT of sand out of your arena as soon as possible. In fact, you may need to remove ALL of it so that you can have the base built up. That trainer was absolutely right not to give her students lessons there. When your footing is sand, you need it to be just about two to three inches deep for dressage, depending on the type of sand you're using. If your boarders were reiners, you could go a little deeper, but not much - a little bit over three inches would be about right. If you watch a horse moving across the arena, it shouldn't leave inch-deep footprints, and you should never. ever see the footing rising up over the horse's hooves.

Footing is tricky. You want it to be deep enough to provide some traction, and deep and springy enough to provide a little cushioning, but you don't ever want it to be too deep, because then it becomes a threat to the horses' tendons. Uneven footing is also dangerous, which is why a good arena will have a flat, well-compacted base and just the right amount and type of footing for the sort of riding that will be done there.

I'm perplexed about how, exactly, your indoor arena becomes too wet. Generally speaking, the reason we can get away with just a sub-base and footing in an indoor arena, as opposed to the necessary sub-base, base, and footing in an outdoor arena, is that drainage isn't an issue - indoor arenas aren't exposed to rainfall or snow-melt, and the amount of water we use to keep the dust down is under our control. Outdoor arenas are another story, which is why we crown them, and why the sub-base is laid down first, under the base, to ensure good drainage.

Still, if your indoor arena is becoming soggy without your adding water, it's obviously taking on water from somewhere! Could it possibly be the result of overwatering? Sand holds water quite well - think of any beach you've ever walked on - and if you actually have two feet of sand in your arena, and you're trying to keep the surface dust down, the watering itself might be the cause of your wetness problem. With so much sand, it would be quite possible to end up with a foot and a half of soaking-wet sand covered with six inches of dry sand.... again, think of the beach. Overwatering would be the best-case scenario, because it's the easiest problem to solve. If that's NOT the problem, though...

If you are in an area of heavy rains, it might be a good idea to check your barn gutters and downspouts, so that you can be sure that water is being diverted away from your barn and arena and not dumped along the sidewalls (and foundation). Something is wrong - water should be flowing AWAY from your arena and AROUND your arena, not through it.

It's possible that you'll need to employ some combination of gutters, downspouts, some grading around the building foundation to raise the level just next to the barn and create a slope away from the arena, and possibly the installation of french drains or the creation of swales (or both) somewhere near the building. You really do need the advice of an experienced, professional contractor. And not just any contractor - you'll need to find one who is experienced in construction, and maintenance of riding arenas.

If the level of your indoor arena has dropped or become compacted over many years of use, you may need to raise it, but the problem is that you can't do this by increasing the depth of the footing. Instead, you'll need to pile all of the footing elsewhere whilst you build up and compact the base. Again, this is going to require the advice, and probably the services, of a contractor.

If arena footing is too deep, horses will become lame. If the footing is a suitable depth but what lies beneath is WET, sticky or slippery clay, the horses' hooves will punch through the footing to the base, and cause the wet clay base to become uneven and lumpy - which, when it dries, will be dangerous to the horses' legs. There's no way to create a safe riding surface by adding footing to a lumpy, uneven base, so if things get to that point, you'll effectively need to start over. I hope you don't have to do this, but if you do, talk to your contractor about the possibility of using another material for your arena base, perhaps allowing the clay to remain as a sub-base IF the drainage problems can be worked out. And when you've decided on the best solution, which will probably involve the addition and compaction of some base material, you might want to have a soils engineer check it before the footing is added, so that you can be entirely sure that the degree of compaction is exactly what you need.

In the meantime, you would probably do best to remove most of the sand from the arena, reducing the footing depth to just a couple of inches, and simply keep the riders OUT of the arena whenever the clay base is wet. Don't let anyone ride when the base is wet! That way, at least the arena will be safe to use when it's dry.

There are a couple of helpful books available on the subject of arenas. Since your boarders are dressage riders, you should probably get a copy of "Under Foot". It's published by the USDF, and I believe it still costs less than $10. There's also "The Equine Arena Handbook" by Robert Malmgren, which you should be able to get from your local tack store or bookstore.

Something else you can do to help yourself is to visit other area facilities and see what's working and what isn't. Talk to the owners and managers, ask them which contractors they used and how satisfied they were with the results. Find out what sort of riding is done in their arenas, and how much riding - at a private barn where there are just one or two horses being ridden every day, the demands on the arena aren't anywhere near as great as they will be at a busy boarding or training facility where the arena is in constant use by multiple horses, all day long.

We all tend to think "oh, yes, FOOTING" when we're considering arena construction - after all, that's what we SEE when we look at the arena, and it's what we see when we ride - but to avoid frustrating and potentially costly problems when the arenas are in use, we need to think about location first, then base... and footing last of all. Good luck getting your arena sorted out!

Jessica

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