Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE Newsletter Archives

Arenas and footing

From: Dawn

Hi Jessica, I am enjoying browsing your homepage, and find it very refreshing to finally find someone who is interested in classical dressage.

I have a question regarding arenas. I have a roughly 60' x 120' outdoor paddock, that I hopefully refer to as my arena. It is turf, although not smooth and lawn like. Instead, it is not flat, and has several areas that have little grass "hillocks". When I ride in there, the uphill climb and downhill charge are quite unnerving, and I am reluctant to do more than a little trot work.

The trouble is that I don't know how to best improve the footing. I have considered harrowing and adding sand to an 8' track, and a 20m circle at the flat end of the arena, to create riding footing without losing the small but valuable extra pasture space. The soil is very clay here, and I am somewhat worried that if I turn it up, I will be fighting the clay. Would you recommend leveling and seeding the whole thing to turf, or going for the gusto and discing/harrowing it up and adding some...What??? sand?? shavings/wood chips???. And what do you think about creating a track to work in? I ride dressage, and I want to keep my horses at home, but the arena is creating some difficulty in getting good riding conditions.

Thanks for any help or resources you can suggest.

Dawn

Hi Dawn! Actually I can recommend something to ANYONE who wants to create or improve a dressage arena. It's a wonderful booklet published by the USDF. The title is "UNDER FOOT: The USDF Guide to Dressage Arena Construction, Maintenance and Repair." You can purchase it from the USDF, and it's a small, inexpensive paperback -- I suggest you buy two copies, because if you ever lend it to anyone, you probably won't get it back. ;-)

USDF
220 Lexington Green Circle, Suite 510
Lexington, KY 40503
859-971-2277
FAX: 859-971-7722 Web: www.usdf.org

This booklet will give you great information on every subject from site selection to watering -- and there's a section on maintaining the grass in your turf arena. You may find that you'll be best off if you create an entirely NEW arena instead of trying to work with what you have now -- but you can create a flat arena AND have a turf surface if you're willing to do the work involved.

Or you may find -- as several of my students have found -- that you will be happier with a different sort of footing, and that you can make up for the loss of grazing space by seeding, mowing, and tidying your existing pasture. There's generally not much grazing in a dressage arena that sees a lot of use, even if it IS a turf surface!

Get the booklet and let me know what sort of arena you decide to put in. Depending on your weather conditions, you may be able to create an outdoor working/riding surface that's usable year-round, and that's a wonderful thing to have for riding AND for occasional use as a turnout area when the pastures are icy or too wet.

- Jessica

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