Liveries - are you allowed to lunge/loose school in the arena?

lottiepony

lottiepony

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We're are strictly forbidden to lunge or loose school in the arena :( it's massive must be 20 x 80 and a rubber surface which gets tracks in it anyway (it doesn't get levelled often) This really bugs me, I can see the argument of it being wreaked if horses muck about etc but the only alternative is a sectioned off bit in one of the fields which is the 'lunge ring' it isn't even level and now is completely unusable due to be way to slippery etc. Just means one less option of exercise. Just wondered if this was a common thing these days??
 
We are in our outdoor arena, but not in our indoor which is sand and tends to pack down (at least, that's what we are told!).
 
one yard I was at allowed lunging in the sand school, never harrowed to the point there was a track but didn't allow free schooling as it damaged the school (go figure)

Other yards have allowed free schooling and lunging
 
we are not supposed to lunge or loose school as a little bit of the membrane made an appearance.

however, we still do lunge when the yard owner isnt about (which is most of the time) but nobody lunges often as we usually have a full set of jumps out in our menage which makes lunging difficult anyway

i wouldnt hesitate to loose school mine in there tho if he couldnt go out in the field due to bad weather etc
 
we were allowed to loose school and lunge but asked to keep it to a minority of the time. YO did level school and remove track reasonably regularly so that was fair and accepted.

If school is well looked after ie YO levels etc and hence is also concerned about its condition then I think its a fair rule. If they never level it and remove track etc then I dont see the justification for telling clients not to lunge since they arent helping the school to stay in good condition themselves.

However it is a case of obey or leave in some places.
 
i am on DIY, and yes, we are allowed to lunge and free school. Our school has been there for a good ten years, with just one top up of rubber as far as I can remember. Its leveled fairly regularly, prob once every couple of months, and its still in good condition.
 
I will allow my liveries to lunge and loose school in the school (not that any of them would ever bother, they're all full or part livery, so either I'm riding their horses for them, or they're schooling or hacking), but I do ask that it's kept to a minimum.

My school is brand new, cost a LOT of money, and I don't want to damage it by having horses pounding round in a circle on the same patch every day. It's levelled at least once a week, so there isn't a track anywhere.

My next project is to build a lunge pen so that we can avoid this problem, however, it hasn't been a problem at all so far as nobody lunges or loose schools apart from me, and I do maybe one every two weeks.
 
I also allow my liveries to lunge, but just ask them to not do it at the same end all the time.

I can lunge quite effectively whilst moving up and down the school, so see it as no different to doing lots of 20 m circles.

I also loose school my sons pony in our arena, and as it is a good surface, and harrowed weekly, so see no problem with either activity.
 
Last yard I was on you weren't allowed to lunge in either arena but as they had a separate lunge ring it wasn't a problem, plus they kept the arenas really nice harrowing several times a week.

Loose schooling I'm not sure there was a specific rule you couldn't as YO never said anything about it and I know several people loose jumped in them. Including me and a friend, we got told by the YO best buddy halfway through that we shouldn't be, yet YO never said anything to us about it so we just ignored the other woman.

Yard I'm am now can do both, but I wouldn't bother loose schooling/jumping again anyway just wanted to see what pony would be like.
 
We're allowed to lunge as long as dont keep the horse on the same spot all the time.
We're not allowed to loose school simply because the fencing isn't tall enough :)
 
I have a small livery yard with a big all-weather outdoor school - I have no problem with liveries lunging to their hearts content, and we harrow the school every week so it doesn't get unlevel/tracks. However I've recently said no loose schooling or turnout (people were turning out whilst they mucked out or if the weather was bad) as horses have chewed/run into/kicked the post and rail fencing. I don't mind if they want to do some ground work - I take my youngster in the school loose and just do a bit of join up/play as do a couple of others.

However having had a big 17hh galloping around flat out whilst being 'loose schooled' I don't think it's great both for the surface/fencing and the horse!

So I guess our rule is 'no uncontrolled loose schooling':)
 
We are allowed to lunge but not free school as the YO has been warned free schooling could damage the drainage and cause up to 40K worth of damage if the horse skids suddenly and turfs up the arena. Some people do when the YO isn't home but it really annoys me. He's set the rule for a reason and people should respect that.
 
The yard I am on only has a small indoor school, about 15m by 25m. We are allowed to lunge and loose school. The YO only complained once and that was when a couple of people were turning their horses loose in the school and then clearing off to do other things!
 
I have a basic, slightly elderly outdoor school and have no problem with liveries lunging their horses as I view it as a valuable form of training/exercise and shouldn't do the school any harm if done correctly but loose schooling I am not so keen on - I think it can turn into a bit of an easy option for people instead of riding/lunging and can easily turn into a 'hooning' session for horse which is detrimental to the school/fencing and possibly the horse not to mention the fact that it prevents anyone else using the school at the same time which riding / lunging do not.
 
I have been on yards where you are allowed to lunge, and one where we weren't. Neither allowed loose schooling.

The yard where we can lunge, it is a massive school and I never stand in one spot, I am constantly walking up and down the length of the school, mainly to make it less intensive for the horse to be on a constant circle, but I suppose this has a spin off in that it does little to damage the school.

At the yard where we weren't allowed, we can a very small pen where we could lunge, but it wasn't great for a big horse and was very uneven. I also thought it slightly odd as on that yard, the majority of people schooled their horses and the YO had breakers and stallions which she schooled most days and I can't see how lunging in a controlled way does any more damage than endless horses schooling on it?
 
I have been on a small yard where we had to book and pay £5 to use school, there was only six stables there. We weren't allowed to lunge because they didn't want to harrow it. Definitely weren't allowed to loose school. My horse got banned from going out because it had mud fever and they said the ground would catch it, then complained my horse chewed it's box because he was stuck in... Didn't stay long...
 
I have a small livery yard and I allow lunging but request that people don't let the horses hoon around on the same spot as it wrecks the surface. I level the arena every night after every one has ridden so its well maintained
 
Heck yes, my owners can do whatever they like in the arena, ride naked in there if they wish to, I don't care :D

If they make a mess, and they do when practising barrels, that's fine, I simply get the tiller out, till it, harrow it and roll it. Oh the joys of having sandy soil - and no stupid planning committees to get their knickers in a knot.
If I want it bigger, and it is getting on for an acre in size now, I simply make it so.

Loose schooling is restricted to the round pen for safety sake.
 
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