any experiences of putting a surface on grass?

[winston44]

i desperately need an area at home to work my youngster, I'm looking put a surface on grass, the land is reasonably well drained but I'm after ideas of stabilising the ground under the surface so it doesn't get cut up. i have found a stand alone carpet fibre surface which I'm told will compress and bare the weight of the hooves so they shouldn't penetrate the ground underneath, the area would only be used for ground work/ lungeing/long reining for about an hour 3 time a week so won't have heavy use.
due to access i can't get a lorry up to the field so trying to avoid the expense of having hardcore / stone bought in.

has any one used this product https://www.rubberco.co.uk/products/grass-reinforcement-mesh-11mm-thick and if so how did it cope? ( the surface would be put on top it this

has anyone put a surface just on grass and how did it fair?
thanks

 

[Kaylum]

The better you build it the less money you waste is my advice. Have seen quite a few bad reviews about carpet that it rides deep. No help I know but I do think you need some sort of drainage in there.

 

[Lamehorses]

Mud control mats with thick layer of sand?

 

[cauda equina]

Can you not just work him on grass, and vary the area you use if it starts to get cut up?

If you can't get a lorry in then getting any sort of surface delivered might be a problem.
Light but bulky materials (which I expect carpet fibre is) tend to come in massive lorries

 

[Melody Grey]

Could a tractor and trailer/ telehandler get your materials up there OP? As others have said, whatever you get will be big and bulky.
ETA: and you’ll likely need machinery you spread it.

 

[ycbm]

has any one used this product https://www.rubberco.co.uk/products/grass-reinforcement-mesh-11mm-thick and if so how did it cope? ( the surface would be put on top it this

I've seen it work where the land was sand immediately under the grass.

The stuff you point to would be over £10k for a 20 x 40 area if you could get a hefty bulk discount. I think it would be a big risk, myself, and I'd want to see one someone else had done and used for a few years first before paying out that kind of dosh.

 

[lamlyn2012]

We have put a surface down on very well drained sandy soil but dug out first, about 6" hardcore then surface on top. You will need to get the levels right and wooden boards to contain the surface would be useful too.
I have seen some bad reports about carpet fibre recently where a lot of nasty rubbish is mixed in with it.

 

[winston44]

thanks for your replies
I'm looking at building a 50' round pen and asking a local farmer with a small tractor to come in and take th pallets/bales up to the field.

mud controls mats to cosy im afraid, we already have them outside the field shelter and they are brilliant

 

[ycbm]

If you are only going to build a 50ft round pen then you are going to be working constantly on the perimeter of it. I would not expect the ground to take it without sinking unless it is properly dug out and hardcore put in.

I have laid an arena without a base, using 2-4mm grit, and it was fine for years until I upgraded it to all weather. But I was able to build 2/3 of it on or close to the bedrock.

You would still need a couple of thousand pounds worth of the mesh you pointed to, plus the surface, plus the round pen, plus boards to retain the surface. It sounds like a lot of money to risk on a potentially unusable pen to me.

Whether I would want youngsters doing 15 metres circles all winter is another question.
.

 

[Melody Grey]

It sounds like the amount you’d need to spend would set you well on the way to getting transport to hire an arena/ facilities if that’s an option?

 

[windand rain]

We have a grass arena keep the grass at about 2 inches long which stops it getting going too hard in summer or frozen hard in winter

 

[winston44]

If you are only going to build a 50ft round pen then you are going to be working constantly on the perimeter of it. I would not expect the ground to take it without sinking unless it is properly dug out and hardcore put in.

I have laid an arena without a base, using 2-4mm grit, and it was fine for years until I upgraded it to all weather. But I was able to build 2/3 of it on or close to the bedrock.

You would still need a couple of thousand pounds worth of the mesh you pointed to, plus the surface, plus the round pen, plus boards to retain the surface. It sounds like a lot of money to risk on a potentially unusable pen to me.

Whether I would want youngsters doing 15 metres circles all winter is another question.
.

i do a lot of ground work so wouldn't be constantly using the outside of the pen, i hate pure lunging as it puts too much stress on the joints and its boring for both the horse and handler, while i have my own lorry, time is a major factor for me and i don't get 4 hours straight when i can box up to hire an arena, plus the local one that has good enough access for my lorry is £35 an hour. at this point any surfaced area will do, even if it only lasts a year or two.

the field is well drained but still gets cut up and its slippery and i have had to stop using it or it will resemble a ploughed field ;-(
I am waiting for a sample of the mesh to arrive so i can judge if it will be up to the job, but having worked the costs out, the mesh will be about £1000 but at least it can be reused if it doesn't work lol


dd you dig out for your arena or just put the grit on top? how did it cope in the wet weather? surely the grit mixed in with the earth when wet?

 

[ycbm]

I think you are wishful thinking if you think you won't be constantly working on the same ground in a round pen only 15 meters across.

 

[autumn7]

OP, be very wary of using that grass mesh you've linked to. I trailer my horse to ride on a heath and one of the car parks is surfaced with that. The first time I went I rode my horse across the corner of the car park to get out on the heath. I quickly found out that the surface was like ice, it had no traction whatsoever and I had my heart in my mouth gingerly riding her the shortest way off it. I now take a detour round the car park to avoid the meshed area as it's lethal. The holes in that mesh are filled with gravel with signs of old grass growing through so the mesh is quite visible. My horse is shod. I'm not sure how an unshod horse would find it.

 

[PurBee]

I researched the grass reinforcement mesh for horse tracks a while back.

If you were going to use that for horses, the 14mm heavy duty thick one is recommended for horses, than the 11mm one you linked.
There aren’t many places selling it, but one website (sorry i forgot name!) is equine based and it was them who advised 14mm than 11mm, and i thought as they are more horse focused as retailers, they’d have a better idea.

Also, for it to not ‘slip’ around, they also advise cutting the grass really short - unrolling and pinning the matting in place, and then allow the grass to grow through and around it to weave itself to it to enable the matting to be more firmly held.
Its more likely to buckle up if driven on or animals cross when its laid and used straight away.

The pins supplied are normally metal spikes - plastic spikes are advised for horses.

Due to my high rainfall area and soft ground i didnt bother with that method in the end, especially considering my horses love a gallop along tracks, and would undoubtably still cause poached dents in the matting, due to soft, wet earth underneath. As it was going to cost me thousands, to potentially fail with my type of land, i didnt embrace the option.

If you have very firm soil that doesnt poach much with general regular grazing, and dense grass cover, allowed the grass to establish roots around the matting, it could work very well.

p.s - If you decide to go for the matting, look on alibaba for the chinese manufacturers of it - youll save a fortune importing it from china than EU retail price. ?

I’d say a safer, more robust, and useable immediately solution would be mud mats, as mentioned, that you fill with sand.
expensive, time-consuming, but will last years.

 

[PurBee]

OP, be very wary of using that grass mesh you've linked to. I trailer my horse to ride on a heath and one of the car parks is surfaced with that. The first time I went I rode my horse across the corner of the car park to get out on the heath. I quickly found out that the surface was like ice, it had no traction whatsoever and I had my heart in my mouth gingerly riding her the shortest way off it. I now take a detour round the car park to avoid the meshed area as it's lethal. The holes in that mesh are filled with gravel with signs of old grass growing through so the mesh is quite visible. My horse is shod. I'm not sure how an unshod horse would find it.

exactly - most sites i found selling it put the disclaimer that time needs to be allowed for the grass to grow through and weave itself around the mesh so its not like crossing an ice rink. In pictures it looks very rubbery and grippy, but its not really.

 

[BBP]

We tried that mesh around our field shelter. Admittedly we didn’t put a surface over it but I hated it. The edges lifted, the horses tripped over them and as the ground below got really wet they went through it and put holes in it running across it and my barefoot horse slid on it.

 

[PurBee]

My horses punched holes in really heavy 1 inch granular rubber 1m square mats when laid on wet, soft unpoached ground as a path. So i doubled them up and the same thing happened. Walking was fine...trotting even...cantering puts huge force downwards on one hoof. But im in a very high rainfall area and have some areas i dont graze on due to being too wet year round, despite huge drains dug.

If you use the firmest piece of land you have, with a slight imperceivable slope for natural rain fall-off drainage, you’d find a 4inch pad of stone/sand mix, laid and rolled/compressed down, will be cheap, quick and last ages.

I’ve used the above method for paths and even with my rainfall, the paths have stuck fast a firm crust, not washed away....or been driven into the firm mud below, on a hill even, can withstand galloping all day long. The trick is to start with a level firm, unpoached area first.
It helps if the weather is dry. I waited for the driest period, april here, 2 weeks no rain, paradise!....all soil dried up, no puddles, laid the stone/sand mix during that time. The stone and sand is so compressed really firm, water runs off it, not through it, so the firm dry soil below remains dry all year round.

Really winter isn’t the best time, because if you put 1inch stone/sand mix onto soft wet cold soil you might find 4 inches could end up being poached in by horse hooves. You could still do that method in winter but would have to double up to 6-8 inches Just to be sure of a firm pad for a horse to canter on.

 

[PurBee]

This is a section i did as detailed in previous post,

 

[winston44]

thanks everyone for your replies, all points taken on board and i think i need to rethink how i will do this