Bark arena surface - advice needed!

Billy Pig

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Has anyone got any experience of bark arena surfaces? We have a 40 x 20 that is too slippy for the horses to canter on, it's fine for walk and trot but to slippy for anything else. The yard is rented so don't want to pay to resurface, but is there anything that can be added to improve the surface e.g. carpet fiber? Has anyone tried this, or is there any advice RE best course of action? Thanks
 
Hey! Probably not the answer you want but my old arena was wood chip and it was very slippy and hard to ride on with anything over 14hh. Eventually it got replaced with carpet as the bark all disintegrated down and turned into mush.

I have never heard of anything that you can add with bark to help, I am afraid.

Sorry! Hopefully someone else has better news :)
 
I'm amazed that anyone still has a bark arena - it was all the rage about 25 years or so ago, then everyone found out that it breaks down, gets incredibly dusty, turns to slop in the wet and is totally unsuitable as an arena surface. Carpet fibre might help, but it really needs to be replaced.
 
I agree, lethal, had a couple of falls riding a 14.2 pony in the old days, just slid over on the corners.
 
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