Terrible menage surface - how to approach YO

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keepmeinmind

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Hi. I'm based in Surrey and have been on the same yard as a DIY livery for five years. During this time we have had many liveries come and go and are up to full capacity now. The menage which is sand and rubber was really good until about 3 years ago when it started deterioating and the rubber was going to the bottom and the sand rising to the top. About 2 years ago a kind of white syntetic strips of cloth were added to it but it is now very deep. We have a number of big horses that use it and a lot of horses are lunged or jumped on the surface which churns it up even more. Sadly some horses are turned loose on it which does nothing but aggravate the situation further. Unfortunately the YO is very complacent and orders the staff to harrow it before a clinic or show but not as an every day thing. The harrows he uses are attached to the tractor but the harrows are set too deep and are bringing up the bottom of the surface. This leaves piles of white cloth and sand around the arena like mole hills! He doesn't have a chain harrow. On some occasions the surface isn't even harrowed it is just rolled which I think is really dangerous as rolling just covers the holes made by the hooves which can be quite deep especially if a horse has jumped. This can lead to a horse placing a 'false step' thus straining tendons and muscles. We have had an awful lot of horses with leg problems on this yard (it has 37 horses and two donkeys!) and I feel sure this is attributed to the surface. Horses that never trip at other yards/event centres, have started tripping in there and the horses find it hard work being ridden in the arena due to the deepness of the surface.

We really feel a chain harrow would be better to use than this harrow with the long spikes on. And for them to harrow it first then roll it and then harrow over the surface once more. How can we approach the YO as he is 'fed up' with people moaning about the surface. My friends mare has had 6 months off work due to a tendon injury and my own mare has been off work for 6 weeks following a tendon strain. We are both worried about using the surface so we were wondering how to go about speaking to the YO. We really don't wish to leave the yard as other than the surface it has everything we want but feel we may have to unless the school is improved.

Any thoughts /comments greatfully received. Also do you think a chain harrow would be useful in this situation?
 
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I am a typical amateur owner, and I don't have my own school. However I am very fussy about the surface that I will ride my horse on. If I thought the surface was bad, I simply would not use the school, so if I kept my horse at this yard, I would ask to owner what they were going to do about fixing the problem, and if the answer was "nothing", I would pack up and leave.

I stopped riding a test at a competition once, because the going was so deep. I only have one horse, if she gets damaged, I am stuffed, so for me, it's a very important issue.
 
BigRed said:
I am a typical amateur owner, and I don't have my own school. However I am very fussy about the surface that I will ride my horse on. If I thought the surface was bad, I simply would not use the school, so if I kept my horse at this yard, I would ask to owner what they were going to do about fixing the problem, and if the answer was "nothing", I would pack up and leave.

I stopped riding a test at a competition once, because the going was so deep. I only have one horse, if she gets damaged, I am stuffed, so for me, it's a very important issue.
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Yes I agree with you in principle. But like I said I really don't want to leave. But I guess my horses welfare comes first. I was thinking of giving the YO the money for the chain harrow and then he could take it off my bill every month for the next 12 months.
 
Why don't you and your friend just buy a chain harrow and give it to the YO. I have run yards for years and believe you me the liveries don't make you rich!! Offer to harrow the school for him instead of just moaning, I bet he would be very grateful, I know I would.
 
If you make a collection of say £10 per owner, I suspect you will have more than enough for a chain harrow. Then you can harrow with the spiked harrow, chain harrow, roller and then chain harrow, and then just chain harrow as you see fit?
 
No, you shouldn't have to buy a piece of equipment that is an essential to maintain the condition of the school! Not your job at all. I agree that livery doesn't make you rich, but that is not the point. If he wants to keep his liveries then it's in his best interest to get one anyway.

You definitely need to bring it up with him though, and perhaps you could come to some agreement with the other liveries about putting some money towards the harrow if he is prepared to do so as well. If he refused point blank to put any money towards it, I'd be telling him where to go I'm afraid. A badly maintained manege surface is worse than no manege!

In the mean time, if you want to use it, club together as many people and rakes as you can, and do it by hand. May take a bit of time, but with a few people I don't think it'd be too much work :)
 
We have our own sillica sand and rubber Arena.
We at one point only had our two horses, 3-4 times a weeks, plus 2 neighbours using it.

My mum was harrowing it every week, and had to ban them from lunging as it's very hard on the surface if you don't look after them (We lunge on ours, but move up and down the school).

To be honest, the surface you have sounds ruined, and would probably requires a specialist contractor to sort it out. However there would be no point with the amount of hammering its taking - 37 horses is a lot of wear and tear, just on a daily basis.

It never ceases to amaze me how people don't appreciate the time and effort required to keep a surface in good condition.
Our neighbours had a look of surprise when we started limiting them to a certain number of times a week - she then went to another neighbour and has now been limited on theirs too as she trashes it (big moving 17.2hh Dressage Horse) due to excessive schooling.

I feel sorry for OP, I would look to move yards, as crearly the lack of rules and care have made it inrideable for the majority of the time, and unless some rules are put in place, and maintenance increased it will only get worse

In terms of your question, can you go to the Yard owner and ask whether you can hold a public meeting with all Liveries, to gauge who is bothered about the state of the school.
And maybe agree on mass, some rules & guidelines - sell it to the YO that you want to try and get a better maintenance routine to improve the facility so he/she doesn't have to up their effort.
 
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We've just been discussing this on our yard FB page, it's a quite informal DIY yard so really not the responsibility of the YO, we're thinking of doing some fundraising stuff like holding another show or fun ride perhaps, or maybe a raffle or equestrian car boot
 
skint1 said:
We've just been discussing this on our yard FB page, it's a quite informal DIY yard so really not the responsibility of the YO, we're thinking of doing some fundraising stuff like holding another show or fun ride perhaps, or maybe a raffle or equestrian car boot
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Why isn't it the responsibility of the YO ? they are quick enough to take the livery money DIY or not, if they 're not going to provide the service then ...............
 
keepmeinmind said:
Hi. I'm based in Surrey and have been on the same yard as a DIY livery for five years. During this time we have had many liveries come and go and are up to full capacity now. The menage which is sand and rubber was really good until about 3 years ago when it started deterioating and the rubber was going to the bottom and the sand rising to the top. About 2 years ago a kind of white syntetic strips of cloth were added to it but it is now very deep. We have a number of big horses that use it and a lot of horses are lunged or jumped on the surface which churns it up even more. Sadly some horses are turned loose on it which does nothing but aggravate the situation further. Unfortunately the YO is very complacent and orders the staff to harrow it before a clinic or show but not as an every day thing. The harrows he uses are attached to the tractor but the harrows are set too deep and are bringing up the bottom of the surface. This leaves piles of white cloth and sand around the arena like mole hills! He doesn't have a chain harrow. On some occasions the surface isn't even harrowed it is just rolled which I think is really dangerous as rolling just covers the holes made by the hooves which can be quite deep especially if a horse has jumped. This can lead to a horse placing a 'false step' thus straining tendons and muscles. We have had an awful lot of horses with leg problems on this yard (it has 37 horses and two donkeys!) and I feel sure this is attributed to the surface. Horses that never trip at other yards/event centres, have started tripping in there and the horses find it hard work being ridden in the arena due to the deepness of the surface.

We really feel a chain harrow would be better to use than this harrow with the long spikes on. And for them to harrow it first then roll it and then harrow over the surface once more. How can we approach the YO as he is 'fed up' with people moaning about the surface. My friends mare has had 6 months off work due to a tendon injury and my own mare has been off work for 6 weeks following a tendon strain. We are both worried about using the surface so we were wondering how to go about speaking to the YO. We really don't wish to leave the yard as other than the surface it has everything we want but feel we may have to unless the school is improved.

Any thoughts /comments greatfully received. Also do you think a chain harrow would be useful in this situation?
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Sounds extremely familar



I agree a badly maintained arena is worse than no arena at all
 
Gilbey said:
Why don't you and your friend just buy a chain harrow and give it to the YO. I have run yards for years and believe you me the liveries don't make you rich!! Offer to harrow the school for him instead of just moaning, I bet he would be very grateful, I know I would.
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Because me and my friends are not made of money. We a) don't see why we should have to
b) feel he should look after the surface as a matter of course
c) are shocked by how many horses are getting injured as a result of riding in there.

Like another poster said, whether YO's make money or not that is an entirely different subject and nothing to do with a poorly maintained school.

Besides your comment 'why don't you and your friend just buy a chain harrow and give it to the YO' is stupid. They are upwards of £150, so its not like spending a tenner on something. That is a lot of money to some people, especially myself and why should we just 'give one away'.

We are not insured to drive the tractor and as we work full time do not have the time to do the work that he should be doing, if not on a daily basis then at least a weekly one. The trouble is he can't see what the problem is because he is the type to sweep problems under the carpet in the hope they will go away. It won't be long before liveries leave and more horses get injured as a result. So sad as its such a nice yard in other respects with a circular lunging arena, and an outdoor covered horse walker and a lovely paddock with show jumps in.

Nelson eleven sorry to hear you are experiencing problems with your arena. Seems it is a common problem.
 
I agree that you shouldnt have to pay for a chain harrow but sadly if people are prepared to pay the rent and the yard is full then YO probably wont sort the problem out regardless of the problems it is causing.
I know you dont want to leave but I would have a word with YO and if they arent prepared to do anything about it I would either not use the school or sadly go elsewhere.
Our yard had a similar problem, its a private yard with max 3 horses using a 60 x 30 rubber/silica sand school. They had it topped up with rubber which made it much better but it cost them thousands.
 
NOISYGIRL said:
Why isn't it the responsibility of the YO ? they are quick enough to take the livery money DIY or not, if they 're not going to provide the service then ...............
Click to expand...

In my specific case I feel my particular yard has a lot going for it besides the school, not an easy thing to replace. We have no formal agreement in place about what is provided/maintained as part of our livery fees, we get a lot of other useful things done/provided for us, I guess the line has to be drawn somewhere. In the ideal world of course it would be nice if the YO did spend some money on improving the school, but they're not going to and nothing we can say or do will compel them to, we want it done so it's up to us to do it.
 
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