Stand alone fubre arenas

[taraj]

Currantly getting prices on building a new arena. On a budget sadly. One company seems to really like "stand alone" fibre, can have it mixed with sand but seems it's more maintenance to have a mix and is alot cheaper on its own. Does anyone have this surface on its own?
40 x 20 mainly flatwork with a few jumps up to 90cm.

 

[TheMule]

I personally think they ride too loose and too soft. You don’t want the hoof to sink in as it lands on the surface which is what I see with most pure fibre arenas. The right kind of silica sand mixed in is very low maintenance- mine rarely needs harrowing

 

[bluehorse]

I don’t have one myself but have been on two livery yards where it has been used.

First yard - it looked deep but didn’t ride deep. It was quite springy which I didn’t like but it had a firm bottom layer mixed with sand and the horses seemed to go well on it. I didn’t particularly like it but they had made a good job of laying it (two layers, bottom one compacted then a looser one on top). They also rolled it every day (needs rolling not harrowing). It was much better in winter when it was wet, not so good in summer and threw alot of carpet fibre dust particles into the air when being ridden on, which I didn’t like, it can’t be good for them to inhale that, I could feel myself breathing it in! It also freezes as it holds moisture. It was for fine flat worked though and I jumped on it up to a metre, not sure if I’d go bigger than that as I think it gives the horse a slightly false ground line.

Current yard - complete full fibre surface just laid. A different brand to the first one and also laid in two layers, but it has bits of foam mixed in with the fibre. I don’t know what’s gone wrong but it’s awful, I don’t think they compacted the bottom surface and it’s all mixed in with the top surface. It’s honestly about 9 inches deep in places and you can hear the hardcore underneath moving. They have now bought a roller and it’s just been rolled today for the first time so I’ll see how it looks, but I can’t see how rolling will solve the problem. I am not happy to ride on it at all, let alone jump on it. I don’t know if it’s a complete cock up on their part or just an awful surface in itself. I suspect a bit of both.

So overall I’d say do your research and make sure you fully understand how it needs to be laid and maintained. The surface on the first yard was definitely ok, I just didn’t like how springy it was. The surface on the second yard, I would say at the moment is unrideable. Short of taking it up and starting again I don’t think rolling can improve it.

 

[Ownedby4horses]

Having built an arena and dug it up again, you need to use sand with a fibre surface. We put one in after fixing and issue with a different surface and changing to just carpet fibre and it refused to knit, contacted multiple companies and had multiple people out and they all said the same, you need silica sand to knit it together. 20 tonnes of silica over to top (40m x 20m arena) was enough to sort it but then it took a long time to completely bed down as there was only me riding in it.

My advice, NEVER build on a tight budget and DON'T cut corners, save up until you have the money for the right surface etc. Believe me, you don't want to go through what we did having to dig up a whole arena by hand through poor advice and then replacing the surface and it still wasnt right despite a number of companies saying yes use the fibre on its own. I met a lot of people after that who had the same issues and it was only solved by sand on it.