Indoor arena surfaces and new yard ideas

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moorhillhorses

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Im relocating to a farm and leaving my small yard to expand so I can offer more livery, bigger outdoor and a indoor :) Without spending a fortune what indoor arena surface works well? I would love a top of the range surface but thats not going to happen. We have gravel and rubber mix in the outdoor its puddle free and is fantastic. Im not sure how it would work in a indoor. I no wood chip is slippy outdoors but instead of wood chip what about wood pellets plus it would be indoor. Has anyone ever seen 'all bed'?

Also in the winter we currently turn our horses out in the outdoor arena in twos. They wreck it gallop about and turn the surface deep in places. We are hoping to have more liverys so we need a big area to fence of in sections for winter turn out for a few hours a day. A field would be too slippy and im not putting them in the outdoor im building. I dont want to spend a crazy amount of money on a turnout surface but I dont want my horses sliding about either and getting hurt. Im not planning on doing drainage on this paddock to really just cover a field in a material thatl not get too mucky.

Last question! I have 12 school ponies who I will winter loose in a shed what surface is the best and I would like a paddock they can stretch there legs in and a surface to cover it in thats not soil. Again I dont plan on putting drainage on this just to have it on a slight tilt. They dont run around like the liverys. so I thought about bark but does it turn into mush?
 
We have woodfibre in our indoor school as it was cheap when I had to replace the springride we had down. We used Jenkinsons who do a finer fibre specifically for indoor use. It's been down 5 years and works pretty well.

We level it each night and in the warmer weather water it well to stop it becoming too loose plus on occassions we dig it up if it's compacting too much which is a lot more work than some surfaces however this is the pay off for not spending as much initially. It hasn't broken down like some outdoor woodfibre arenas I have seen possibly because we control the amount of water on it and it's not exposed to frost etc in the same way as if it was outdoors.

I would recommend spending buying the stuff made from virgin wood though as I know several people who have used recycled stuff from a few companies and it's been contaminated with glass etc.
 
Thank you for replying. What do you have under the surface is there membrane/lining? Im afraid this will cause it to move and horses could slip.I thought the wood chip would look fresh and clean compared to sand and it would be cheaper to get us going for the first few years x
 
No membrane, just the soil / infill which was levelled and compacted before laying the original sand and plastic and some of the sand is still there under the woodfibre. What I like about the woodfibre is that when slightly damp it rides very like good turf and you see it spring back as the horse lifts their feet.
 
If it got very dry would it move much? I dont we would have that problem with the air being so damp all the time now :/ Is it a good surface to jump or compete on and if a few horses done a jumping course would it move. I was thinking a light sprinkle of gravel below. We will probably convert a shed into a indoor and the orginal floor leave with gravel covering it then the wood chip or sort of rock hammer it? x
 
It does move a bit if not damp. Over winter we don't have to water it as the air is damp but in hot weather we do have to put quite a bit of water on. We have several 1000l tanks outside which we attach to a pump to water it. Ours gets quite a bit of use (riding school / livery yard of 32 horses) and so it does track a bit so we run the quad and leveller round each night. Son has jumped to 1.40+ on it fine in training but tbh it's probably not ideal to compete on - most show places now seem to have waxed surfaces and I would see it more as a economic surface for our sort of yard. I don't know how it would be on concrete - Jenkinsons were great giving us lots of advice so maybe speak to suppliers for their advice.
 
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