outdoor menage construction

[mandolin20021960]

On my many visits to horse establishments (my wife has worked with horses for many years), I have often found myself noting with dismay some disastrous examples of menage construction. One contributor to your this forum was quoted £36k for construction of a 60 x 30 m menage (maybe it's so expensive because of lighting installation?).
Did they go to 'I Saw You Coming' for the quote ?
In my opinion a menage is a very simple thing to construct yet I continue to see poor examples.
Often these constructions are done my well meaning farmers/landscape gardners or general labourers who seem to think that a few drains here and there and any old stone will ensure free draining of water through the arena.
Once the 'fines' from poorly chosen stone types migrate down to the dreaded 'Terram', then any free drainage will begin to disappear.
I have yet to find any recommended standard for the final riding surface materials (probably because there isn't any)
Top surfaces often consist of sand, rubber, fibre or varying mixtures of these types of materials.
The material used for the final surface is by far the hardest to standardize and various combinations have produced varying results and is a matter of individual preference.
Maintaining a surface of perfect 'resistance with sufficient give' for horse traffic yet manageable to maintain drainage is not easy. I have not done extensive tests on various surface materials so remain open to suggestions.
High sand content arenas must involve a degree of irrigation management during very dry periods in order to maintain stability. The most efficiently draining sands ultimately are the most unstable when dry.
Sub-base construction; drainage layout; stone carpet; blinding layer are all easy to decide upon. In my opinion, on no account should man-made porous membranes be installed in arens. They always block with 'fines' and ultimately fail.
The hard bit is managing the top layer to maintain free passage of water.
Anyway, if anybody has anything constructive comments I would love to hear them.

 

[Dubsie]

I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on drainage - we've a grass area we school on which is pure gravel underneath - we're adjacent to a former landfill from which the gravel was extracted about the time the M4 was built. This area just drains so well that it's never muddy even when there's no grass and it's been thoroughly schooled on within half an hour of heavy rain, so its very tempting to build a surface upwards on top as the drainage is there in situ so to speak. The land isn't suitable to sustain a crop it's very poor due to the drainage. We're contemplating applying for an arena at the moment.

In your opinion would it be fine to build a frame (am thinking railway sleepers) and fill over the top of this free draining land with a riding surface? If so what surface would work best? I was wondering about woodchip as we've a plentiful supply of wood....but thought that might get too soggy in wet weather.
I know different surfaces work best for different types of use. My daughter says the more rubber the better when falling off!

 

[Chico Mio]

I prefer a manege myself

We have just helped construct a friends outdoor manege on a clay and rock subsoil. We put in trench drains lengthways, filled with large (about 5cm) chippings, then 3cm stone chippings which were rolled in, layer of finer gravel, rolled and then about 15cm of silica sand. No membrane as, like you, we think they are pointless.

The manege is cut into a sloping hillside and just above it's top end there is a newly laid field drain to intercept water before it can drain down hill onto the manege.

We have had an absolute deluge over the past ten days and I am happy to say we have so far only experienced a bit of puddling in the centre of the manege. Time will tell how the surface stands up to a winter in Galicia.

 

[MerryMAL]

Could I get one done for £10,000?

 

[nurselainee]

I had my 40x20m sand paddock done by well meaning farmers and they were fantastic. I probably have the driest sand paddock in the whole of the North West, it NEVER holds one drop of water and has been fantastic these past five years. They put 10 drains in mine, the amount of hard core and stone was unbelieveable, i also had top quality heavy duty post and rail, all concreted in as part of the package. i was only the second one they had ever built. If you choose carefully then a good paddock without problems can be built. Mine cost £12,500 in total but because it was famers and they owned their own plant machines it was a very very good price. I must admit, when i see the prices of some constructions i cant believe it.

http://www.facebook.com/photos.php?id=635748585#/photo.php?pid=1792889&id=635748585

 

[Booboos]

We've done one DIY, 20x60, for under 10,000 and it has never flooded in the last 5 years (including a time when the entire farm was under water!). However, it did require quite a bit of reading up on ground works and trying to understand how drainage works, as well as a bit of calling around to find the best deals on harcore, etc. We used an equestrian sand; I am not sure I would want to use anything less good than this (e.g. woodchip, regular sand)

 

[Mrs_Wishkabibble]

I have a beautiful 25 x 65 manege that we "did ourselves"
We had a lot of building rammel in as it sat in a dip.
We did make the mistake of silica sand that was not angular and was single sized so had to start again (after having my money refunded for the sand) and now have Trackright with Equimulch rubber on top, it has never once flooded, rides lovely, is never too deep and doesnt track up badly.

I can school, jump and lunge on it with no problems.

If I had to give it one fault I would say it can be a little dusty (only mid cannon high) when we have had very long periods of dry weather like last year.

Manage construction is not rocket science I don't think, a decent groundworks/builder DIY'er with basic knowledge and a little research could IMO construct one as long as the top surface has been researched and if silica is being used then to get it analysed first.

I think nowadays that some "bob a jobbers" see the prices people are getting charged and think "I could do with a bit of that" and with no knowledge whatsover think they can turn up with a digger and spread a bit of sand about!

 

[now_loves_mares]

I agree that it shouldn't be that hard. The principles of drainage are surely the same for whatever purpose (notwithstanding the weight on top of it) and I agree that the key is getting the surface right. Someone earlier mentioned ensuring that there were drains to catch run-off from surrounding fields, this could be a disaster otherwise.

My top tip, small though it is, is NOT to build the external fence right on the boundary of the arena. Use sleepers at ground level, but set the fencing back a bit. Can't tell you how many times wobbly youngsters take your knee out otherwise! Not to mention your schooling whip bashing it all the time. A small but very important detail IMHO!!