Ever Walked on a Soft, Slippery, Sink-up-to-Your-Ankles, Sandy Beach?

[JAK]

......well, that's what out s*dding outdoor school is like now! Arrgghh!

I reckon it has has been watered, err, oh yeah, that would be never since it was done at the beginning of the year & levelled, umm, twice possibly?

YO refuses point-blank to dampen it down as yard is on a water meter & she 'can't afford it'! Not much point levelling it out then either, as it is now so dry, it's like walking across the ruddy Sahara!
It is now, sadly, virtually unusable sometimes & things show no signs of improving!

CB can manage OK, (with his big 'dinner plate feet'! LOL) but LBO & FOO are rather limited in what they can do - littlest daughter asked if she could canter again tonight & I had to say 'no', as it was much too soft for him to cope with! (Have to check it daily!)

I can't see any way round this at all unfortunately!

 

[Governor]

Thats what the menage at my old yard was like. They thought they could solve problems by dumping more sand on it resulting in a ridiculously deep surface.

I reverted to riding on turf in the jumping field when the ground was OK until they then closed that too.

The school would have been ok if they either watered it - but then it normally flooded as someone cut corners on drainage! - or dumped a tonne of rubber on it. Worth the long term investment in my opinion.

We've since moved yards (thank god ... it wasn't only because of the menage, that was only 2% of the problems) so we've now got a decent surface to use. No suggestions i'm afraid but I do understand your predicament...dry surface can't be used but then neither can a rock hard field!

 

[Onyxia]

Sending you all Yorkshires rain, we have plenty to spare!

Sadly, unless everyone makes a stand i doubt YO will do anything.

 

[JAK]

I know, it's a hopeless situation tbh! I don't want to leave as, despite its many problems, I really like the yard & our YO is really nice, we have a lot of fun there really!

Trouble is, hardly anybody else there actually 'rides' their horses & most of 'em probably couldn't give a stuff if the wretched school vanished completely, so not much chance of getting a petition up or anything!

We really need the school though, as the hacking round here is rather limited & fairly lethal! The girls will be really upset if we leave & the ponies are all really settled in their little 'herds' & everything!

*stamps feet crossly*

 

[JAK]

Yes please, send all the rain you can spare!

Even the girls were walking round tonight, peering up at the sky & saying "I wish it would just bl**dy rain!" (Well, it did but not much!)

 

[Onyxia]

[ QUOTE ]
Yes please, send all the rain you can spare!

[/ QUOTE ]
not stopped all day here so plenty of it! Been sulking all day, had so much outdoors tuff planned and then it bl00dy rains-grrrrrrrrr.

[ QUOTE ]
Even the girls were walking round tonight, peering up at the sky & saying "I wish it would just bl**dy rain!" (Well, it did but not much!)

[/ QUOTE ]
Awwwwwww, bless them.Thought about trying a rain dance?

 

[JAK]

At this stage of the game, I reckon a 'rain dance' is possibly our best option!

It's just soooo disheartening, as we waited ages for it to be done & now it has been, it's a total waste of space!

 

[rach1984horse]

Rubber is probably the best bet. Just loads and loads of chopped up tyres.

My old work used to have it and it was great.

You could tell YO that if she doesn't get it sorted her car tyres will be the first to go...

 

[PapaFrita]

Most of our blinking sand has blown away (never gets watered or levelled either) We were promised lots of sand at the end of last year, but after a depressingly few lorryloads it stopped coming and now it's a bit like riding on a motorway... less traffic of course.

 

[parsley]

You have my sympathies there - the arena where I used to keep mine was like that in winter due to too much water. Its horible when there is a school but nowhere to school

 

[darksided]

The yard where I used to have a share pony had a "menage" that was about 20X30 metres, one side was fenced by the muck heap, the other just had random sleepers.
It was always water-logged and was covered in ripples where the water had deposited the sand.
Absolutely useless.

 

[sojeph]

Ever Walked on a Soft, Slippery, Sink-up-to-Your-Ankles, Sandy Beach?

Yes-last week!! Took my sister to Woolacombe beach and had to walk about a mile to the food van in deep, soft sand! Apart from nearly killing me at the time, a week on and my ankles are still hurting!!

You couldn't make a horse work in that!!

 

[puddicat]

Just a few suggestions:

1. Is there a river near by? you could hire an electric pump from H+S

2. Is there a farm near by? If there's a friendly farmer with a spray tank he might let you load it with water from the farm and dump it on the arena.

3. You could tie tennis rackets onto the ponies feet. They'd have to be junior tennis rackets I suppose.

4. You could hire a wind machine and blow the top 5cm of surface off so it wasn't deep.

5. You could hire it out for beach parties and use the proceeds to buy water from the YO.

6. There's a supplement called 'no-sink' which if added to your ponies feed stops them sinking into arena surfaces. ONLY JOKING

 

[JAK]

Just walking across it on foot makes you out of breath, it's so deep & slippery - yopu just can't get a solid footing on it at all!

 

[JAK]

[ QUOTE ]
6. There's a supplement called 'no-sink' which if added to your ponies feed stops them sinking into arena surfaces. ONLY JOKING

[/ QUOTE ]
Well, get off your clever clogs bottom & invent this pronto & I will pay you a million, trillion pounds for it.......as would many others on here, judging by the responses! (Am obviously not alone here with this problem!)

 

[ruscara]

I am CERTAIN I read on here that at someone's yard they emply their poo on the arena, and have got the perfect surface! Apparently it doesn't smell, either, or attract flies. I am pretty sure it was a serious post.

 

[puddicat]

He he he nah, you're right, the real answer is to water it and the first two were meant to be the sensible suggestions.

What sometimes happens is that people putting their own arenas down, and some suppliers for that matter use sand that isn't fine enough grade so it gets deep. There's only a few quarries that do sand that's really suitable for arenas without being mixed with something so there are a lot of arenas about that are heavily reliant on water to make them firm.

 

[JAK]

This could be worth investigating further m_m! (I shall go & harangue scientific OH in a mo, see what he says about it!)

 

[JAK]

Bizarrely, it's only deep in places, where the sand has blown into a 'heap', in other places it's down to the membrane!

It was never watered & consolidated when it was first laid unfortunately, so the whole surface is a shifting, uneven mess! I don't think the sand is suitable either - it's much too fine & soft, doesn't hold together at all - it really is like a very fine, powdery beach sand!

We have a festering, smelly pond nearby - wonder if the water could be somehow transferred from that onto the surface? (Whole thing wants re-doing really but that's never going to happen!)

 

[Triskar]

You'll hate me for this, but we've just (1 month ago, in the middle of the heatwave) made a new manege with a basalt sand surface - it hasn't been watered, we've had next to no rain, and it's WONDERFUL! I know that basalt can ride a bit hard so will need the odd harrowing, so we are getting 2 inches of rubber for a top dressing (when their rotten machine starts working again), but in the meantime it's a fantastic surface. Any chance you could get YO to add 100 tonne of basalt sand? You can't lay it too deep (we've got 300 tonne as a surface), so it makes harrowing really easy - you're never worried that you might bring up the sub base. The horses ride on top of it, and it does give plenty of grip. Just needs rubber or granulated PVC for that extra bit of spring.

 

[puddicat]

it really is like a very fine, powdery beach sand

no that sounds right, it should be finer than 'normal' sand, it gets deep and loses water quickly if its too coarse. Think of clay as the extreme - that's at least 10 times finer grain size but it holds together so well it goes solid when dry and holds water very effectively.

wonder if the water could be somehow transferred from that onto the surface?

Possibly if the pond doesn't contain too much loose material including things like frogs. Getting a pump wouldn't be too difficult but getting a long length of hose might be - local contractors would probably be able to point you in the right direction. You'd need a filter on the pond end to stop froggies and stuff being launched onto your school but that shouldn't be a problem if you find someone who has a pump.

 

[Beanyowner]

[ QUOTE ]
6. There's a supplement called 'no-sink' which if added to your ponies feed stops them sinking into arena surfaces.

[/ QUOTE ]

Is that a herbal one by any chance??

 

[puddicat]

Oi! I'm in enough trouble as it is for that comment so I'm saying nothing

 

[teapot]

It's not just yours Jak - even the all-weather, no expense spared rubber arena at my RS is just plain awful due to the dry weather. And this arena is normally harrowed every day etc. It's so deep in parts, even the shire x I was riding yesterday was struggling a bit.


Hope it's sorted soon