Arena renovation

[Landcruiser]

Does anyone have any experience of renovating an arena surface, or know of an independent person who could come and assess and advise? (Wiltshire).

I have inherited a 20x20 turnout area/arena which my horses have now been on for about 6 weeks. Apparently it used to be sand, but it was covered in grass/vegetation when the horses went on it. They've eaten it off and mashed the surface which now looks like gritty mud, with the odd big stone/brick showing through. It's "trudgy" but not too deep - basically I think there's some hardcore or something underneath. We are on clay.

I would like to use it for schooling come summer and don't think that will be a problem once it's rolled and harrowed, but ideally I'd like to renovate it into something I could use for riding year round. Thoughts?

Budget is very limited!

 

[edinburgh75]

We had the same problem. If it's muddy then don't add anything on top no matter how tempting it may be. It just makes it worse.
The key is to get back to a firm level surface so it is worth checking gumtree and local builders who will hire out a mini digger and driver to come and scrape your arena back. Approx £150 for a day is what I found. I did it myself but I can drive a digger.
Once it's level you will be able to see how the drainage is. If it's not draining then that's your first job because no amount of surface will help that.

We asked about on forums and managed to get 25 tons of free arena surface and just had to pay for transport which was £200. Took us weeks of shovelling it and raking but it's worth it in the end. The blisters however are not fun!

 

[Landcruiser]

Thank you, very useful advice. I've seen that minidiggers can be hired quite cheaply by the week, and we were planning to reinstate all of our ditches ourselves in the summer with a hired one. How hard can it be to drive one???

 

[Princess Rosie]

We hired one recently for £75 a day. Be aware though what you think may be a fairly big digger may turn out smaller than you think, we hired a 1.5tonne one and it was a lot smaller than we thought. I can highly recommend equi bound from premier equestrian flooring, it was recommended to me by two people on here and we've just renovated our arena with it as a complete surface and it is brilliant! Doesn't move even for lunging, it's not as expensive as you think so might be worth contacting them for some ideas about sorting your arena, you have to lay it yourself as I don't think they offer a construction service but it's very easy to lay!

 

[edinburgh75]

I second the size of the digger. I used a 5 ton and its just at the limit of what I needed. They are easy to use but you have to be careful about load weight and where you are sitting on the ground. Depends how brave you feel and if you are on level ground. I don't recommend using them on a slope unless you know what you are doing!
If you hire one then make sure you get all the buckets with it and they show you how to change them. That way you can scrape big areas with one, dig big time trenches with one and nice thin drainage lines with the smaller one.