Lunging surfaces?!

[Hollyhorse]

Sorry to have so many posts about this but I'm trying to do as much research myself as possible before our lunge pen construction starts. My main concern is finding a surface that can cope with lots of lunging - the reason we're having to build a separate lunge pen is because our manege doesn't cope with lunging!

So I was wondering if anyone uses a surface which seems to be fine with lots of lunging? It doesn't have to be an all-weather surface as we're hoping to have the lunge pen undercover. Any recommendations would be great. Plus if you know any surfaces to avoid that would be really helpful!

 

[at work]

Can anyone explain to me why a surface designed to ride on shouldn't cope with lunging?

 

[Hollyhorse]

Well lots of surfaces work best for different things - some surfaces are designed for dressage, providing a lot of bounce etc, but are not good for jumping as it's 'slippy'. The same can be said for the other way round. Most surfaces are fine with occasional lunging but I have several horses and often lunge at least one a day and with my competition horses/babies they tend to 'dig' the school up making it deeper in some areas and thin in others, so I end up levelling it daily! At a friend's yard they have a special lunge pen which NEVER gets levelled and yet copes with having 100 horses lunged on it everyday! I'm going to ask them what the surface is but I was just wondering if anyone had any other suggestions.