From: Audrey
Dear Jessica, I'm planning ahead to my very first dressage show in May. Last year my husband dug an arena for me. I know that must sound really strange, but our land is very hilly and he sort of scooped out a lot of dirt and made a flat place on one side of a hill! I love my arena but I need to mark a REAL dressage arena inside it, so it will be the right measurements. I would love to have one of the arenas I see at the shows with the white chains and little white posts, but those are really expensive and we can't afford one this year or maybe ever. My husband doesn't have time to build me a special little dressage arena fence, but he said that he'll take a bunch of two-by-fours up there for me if I want to use them to mark my arena. I guess it would be okay for measurements, but I know when we go to a real show that my horse and I will need to work inside a little tiny fence of some kind, and I would really like to have one at home so that we'll both be used to it. Do you have any ideas about what I can do with some two-by-fours to make a dressage arena? And what about letters?
Thanks, Audrey
Hi Audrey, lucky you to have your own land and such a helpful husband! ;-) I know what you mean about those white plastic chain arenas, they really are very pretty. But there's no reason you can't have your own nice-looking arena at home, even if the budget can't encompass that kind of arena fencing.
If your husband has enough two-by-fours to outline a dressage arena, you can start out by putting them on the ground. But you're right, it would be a good idea to get them OFF the ground, for several reasons. Getting used to working inside a small fence is certainly a good idea -- and your two-by-fours will last longer if they aren't lying on the ground all the time. Why not use cement blocks -- the kind that, with a few boards added, can serve as extra bookshelves -- as posts? They're heavy enough to stay in place, but not so heavy that you can't lift them and move them around. With cement blocks and two-by-fours, you can make yourself a nifty enclosure for your dressage arena. If you get really ambitious, you can paint all the pieces white!
Letters aren't hard to make. Next winter when you're indoors and bored, you can have a letter-making project, and create lovely two- or three- or four-sided, free-standing markers. But for now, you can make a great "starter set" of letters with eight cheap plastic buckets (or twelve if you're setting up a standard arena), a roll of contact paper in a contrasting colour, and a couple of bags of sand. Cut letters out of the contact paper, stick them on the buckets, put the buckets in position, and fill them with sand to keep them from falling off or blowing away.
Jessica
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