cushionride arenas

ihatework

ihatework

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well the lady that own's the private yard where I keep my horses is looking to install an arena
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BUT she is on a very tight budget, but I'll not complain as any arena is better than none!

Anyway she's been looking into cushionride (posh wood chip) arenas which are quite reasonably priced.

Does anyone have one of these installed? How was the company and what does the surface ride like?

I have actually ridden on cushionride before, although it was not the same situation, very big school with a pre-existing sand/wax base that was just topped up with cushionride. It took a while to settle but once it did, to be fair, it rode quite nicely.

Any experiences anyone?
 
I dont know about cushionride arenas specifically, but I do feel very wary about woodchip arenas as I used one a few years ago when I was at Cholderton, and horses always seem to fall over on them when lunging and jumping.
However I dont know what 'quality' of woodchip that was !!
Might be OK mixed with a sand/wax base?
 
We ahve a Cushoinride gallop and find it a very good surface.
Very quick to settle due to being treated, loses the 'slip' factor very quickly.
Only downside to the woodchip being treated is that it will need replacing more often than normal woodchip, generaly every 4/5 years.
 
I had a cushionride arena and whilst it did the job in an emergency I wouldn't have one again!
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It takes a while to settle in and loves the rain (no problem there then) but is pretty useless for lunging as they just slip/fall over and I would be very wary about jumping on it. I had to work really hard on mine (raking and rolling it every other day) to ensure that the surface was at its best. But because I'd seen horses slip on it I was never that confident riding on it. Perhaps get it mixed with sand?
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They have them at Wales and West. A lot of horses fall over. It might be because of the excessive use it gets, but you do feel very unsafe going around corners.
 
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thanks guy's. Not looking massively promising then, unfortunately I am not in a position to really have much influence over what arena goes in.
 
I'm building a 60 x 40 arena soon so I've been looking at a lot of surfaces. I've found a lot of people do not like wood chip and CushionRide is no better. I'm going for sand and rubber, but my first choice would be a waxed pre-mixed surface, except i got quoted £50,000
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and thats just for the surface!
 
My cushionride was fantastic for 3 years and then has gone down hill. I wrote to them for advise but they were not very helpful and then at the Stoneleigh equine thing in November I went to see them and asked them to come and see it to advise me.They said 'of course' then they just sent me a letter to say that a top up would cost X amount.I will have to get it topped up but I wanted some advise as part of it is a bog and we have to avoid it or sink!
 
I have a woodchip arena and it's good. If we were to put one in again then I would probably go for waxed/fibre sand, but we were on a budget at the time!
We've had ours 5 years and it's been used almost everyday. It's been topped up once, and is due again soon.
I don't do much jumping, but do alot of polocrosse schooling it in (big stops, spins, rollbacks etc) and the horses don't slip at all.
It gets a sheep hurdle dragged over it with the 4x4 every so often, but other than that we don't do any maintenance for it.
 
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