Dressage horse, yard facilities / priorities

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Muddywellies

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I'm looking for opinions on what dressage riders prioritise in a yard :

1/ Indoor arena with lights & mirrors (lights on a meter and v expensive)
2/ Outdoor arena with free lights , no mirrors
3/ Horse walker
4/ Canter track
5/ V knowledgeable/ experienced YM
6/ Concreted yard area (as opposed to a muddy yard area)
7/ Regular arena surface maintenance

Edited to add no 8 : like minded people
 
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sbloom said:
Yes but an hour or two in individual paddocks...right through to a track system or other 24/7 arrangement, a huge difference.

I think it depends on the type of clientele you want.
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It's for my advanced dressage horse - I'm trying to decide between two yards and my list are the differences in the two yards. The grazing on offer at both yards is comparable and isn't the reason I'm in a quandary.
 
This would be my order of importance:

1/ Regular arena surface maintenance
2/ V knowledgeable/ experienced YM
3/ Indoor arena with lights & mirrors (lights on a meter and v expensive)
4/ Outdoor arena with free lights , no mirrors
5/ Canter track
6/ Horse walker
7/ Concreted yard area (as opposed to a muddy yard area)
 
I do amateur eventing so my priorities might be different. Trying to think from a dressage point of view though, if money wasn’t a concern I would probably prefer the indoor with mirrors. The outdoor would be fine if the price of the lights for the indoor was prohibitively or annoyingly expensive and no mirrors wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me.

The next thing on your list would be the surface maintenance, especially if there’s quite a few people using the school and then it could get messed up quite quickly.

I hate walkers so that wouldn’t influence me either way.

The level of experience of the yard manager could go either way - I trust my own judgement and would worry that an experienced manager would try to exert their opinion or take over. On the hand it’s nice to have somebody experienced to talk things over with or share concerns with and I wouldn’t want to put my horse on livery with somebody who is clueless! So that probably depends on you and your specific situation I think.

The canter track would be nice for getting out of the arena, especially if the hacking isn’t great.

A muddy yard would be a bit annoying but I’d put up with it if everything else was good and I wouldn’t choose a concrete yard if it meant compromising on other more important things.
 
Assuming decent grazing and hacking my order would be

1 - Arena maintenance
2 - Outdoor school
3 - Canter track
4 - Indoor school
5 - YM
6 - Walker
7 - Concrete yard.

This is based on horse being on DIY if on part or full livery then experienced YM would be higher on list.
 
HelenBack said:
I do amateur eventing so my priorities might be different. Trying to think from a dressage point of view though, if money wasn’t a concern I would probably prefer the indoor with mirrors. The outdoor would be fine if the price of the lights for the indoor was prohibitively or annoyingly expensive and no mirrors wouldn’t be a deal breaker for me.

The next thing on your list would be the surface maintenance, especially if there’s quite a few people using the school and then it could get messed up quite quickly.

I hate walkers so that wouldn’t influence me either way.

The level of experience of the yard manager could go either way - I trust my own judgement and would worry that an experienced manager would try to exert their opinion or take over. On the hand it’s nice to have somebody experienced to talk things over with or share concerns with and I wouldn’t want to put my horse on livery with somebody who is clueless! So that probably depends on you and your specific situation I think.

The canter track would be nice for getting out of the arena, especially if the hacking isn’t great.

A muddy yard would be a bit annoying but I’d put up with it if everything else was good and I wouldn’t choose a concrete yard if it meant compromising on other more important things.
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Thanks for this. V useful. The indoor with mirrors (and incredibly expensive lights ) is great in winter once you've waded through the mud to get to it, but it's the only arena and is absolutely stifling hot in anything over about 20°. So in summer I'm forced to ride very early before work. I never thought I'd see the day when I longed for an outdoor. Luckily I'm not especially a fair weather rider so will ride in some (not torrential) rain. However the proposed outdoor has no mirrors and I use them a fair bit. I guess I could go out to arena hire sometimes if I'm really struggling without the mirrors 🤔. Also it's not really for me that I need an experienced YM, it's for overall managing (or not managing 🙈) the yard. I quite like a 'well managed yard' 😊
 
Muddywellies said:
It's for my advanced dressage horse - I'm trying to decide between two yards and my list are the differences in the two yards. The grazing on offer at both yards is comparable and isn't the reason I'm in a quandary.
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I think we were imagining it was asked in order to set up a dressage yard :)

Good arena surface and booking system
Mirrors good, must be useful (not all are very useful!)
Canter track nice to have
Good YM in terms of emergencies when I'm not there, and managing the yard, otherwise not important in terms of their input to managing my own horse
 
No mention of the hacking from either yard? Unless you count the canter track as a hack?

Even or especially advanced dressage horses benefit from good safe hacking.

A good yard manager is very important, a poor one is a nightmare even if the facilities are ace.
 
Tiddlypom said:
No mention of the hacking from either yard? Unless you count the canter track as a hack?

Even or especially advanced dressage horses benefit from good safe hacking.

A good yard manager is very important, a poor one is a nightmare even if the facilities are ace.
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I haven't listed all the facilities at both yards - just differences in the two. Hacking is comparable at both.
 
This would be my preference;
1)Good surface and well maintained/managed outdoor arena
2)Concrete/stoned areas
3)Indoor arena
4)Canter track
NB horse walker would never be on my list

But absolutely top of the list is a YO/YM who manages the yard and other liveries well and is not completely bonkers (as detailed on some of the treads on here over the years!). If this isn’t in place as standard it doesn’t matter how excellent the yard is, I just wouldn’t want to be there!
 
Thank you all , that's been a huge help. I've decided on a yard, with my priorities as follows :

1/ Experienced YM
2/ Outdoor with well maintained surface and free lights. If I need to I can box 10 mins to an indoor with mirrors .
3/ Concrete yard. Yay, I can get from car to yard, barn, muckheap and arena without wellies !
4/ Canter track

I can do without the hot stuffy indoor and horse walker. I might get wet, but I've managed most of my life without so that's fine.
 
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