Which Arena Surface

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Katrina L

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Hi All, I'm having an arena built at home and would appreciate some advice on which surface to use. We are in the West of Ireland so plenty of rain but it's on a good site with good drainage. Use will be light to medium.
 
I had Combi-ride and I was very pleased with it. But after four years, there is almost no sign of the fibre or the little rubber shreds, it's all rotted away. At the local competition venue, their carpet has also rotted away to nothing in a similar time frame. Martin Collins told me all natural surfaces will rot, it has to be synthetic, so you might look out for that.

If I was to do another, I'd stick with sand and rubber, but I'm having great success with dog hair and sheep wool as fibre on mine now :) it will disappear in time too (slowly) but I have an endless source so that's not an issue.
 
We have silica sand, and hopefully will be topping it today with carpet fibre from Valley Equestrian. AFAIK they supply Martin Collins and Charles Britton and I think this is the Clopf product.

Its basically a mix of shredded new carpet with some plastic fibres (from heavy duty sacks) mixed it to create roots when its rotovated in. I was worried our arena wouldn't be wet enough to put it on, but I watered for 3 hours yesterday and it rained all night so I'm hoping it will mix in well :)
 
The only surface I have ridden on which I hated and so did the horse was the wax and fibre sand. Local centre have it, amazing how many horses trip on it. Meant to be good for jumping but I'm not convinced.
 
We have silica sand and Clopf - its pretty good i dont think ours was mixed in properly at the beginning as when its hot all the fluff comes to the top, it doesnt blow away as quite heavy but it looks like a tonne of pillows have exploded in the school! Another yard i was at had the same surface and theirs was rotivated into the sand and they have the recommended harrow for it it does get fluffier when warm but nothing like ours!
 
Thanks for your feedback. How deep would you go with the sand / rubber mix. I'm thinking 2inches of rubber with say 0.5 inches sand ... Dog hair / sheep wool fibre isn't an option for me.
 
I think we have 5 inches of sand, and the fibre will be rotovated into the top 2-3 inches. The sand is pretty compacted now after 4 weeks settling and a tiny bit of use.
 
We've got economy mix from Equestrian Surfaces- they have offices all over the UK so may be a base in Ireland. We used about 6" of their fibrous membrane on top of the drainage stone then 4-6" of their Economy mix surface which is a premixed surface of fibres, silica sand and rubber and then covered it with 2 " of their rubber. It's been down for 16 years and only needed topping up with rubber once in that time (although it's coming up to needing another top up). It's in daily use on a large livery yard for all activities and has really performed very well. The fibrous membrane acts like a sponge holding water in it so that during a dry spell it can release the water back up to the surface to keep it moist. Ours has never flooded. The fibrous membrane also means that you don't have to worry about puncturing Terram as that is often used below the sand. I have used the carpet fibres in our indoor school but have been very disappointed with them as I thought they would also retain the moisture when we watered it but they just ball up and require a lot of levelling and watering- but that is indoors though.
 
I inherited an old Charles Britton school when we moved which must have very good drainage because it never floods. It had a good 5-6" of silica sand but I found that the sand was being blown out of one side (we are in a windy location) when it dried.

At my last livery yard they had carpet fibre added, I loathed it! The fibre fluffed up on top of the sand, stuck to Velcro on boots and blew out of the school.

After getting advice I got a rubber chip topping and it's brilliant, keeps the sand damp and in the school, gives a lovely springy surface and never floods. Go with rubber!!
 
LeannePip said:
We have silica sand and Clopf - its pretty good i dont think ours was mixed in properly at the beginning as when its hot all the fluff comes to the top, it doesnt blow away as quite heavy but it looks like a tonne of pillows have exploded in the school! Another yard i was at had the same surface and theirs was rotivated into the sand and they have the recommended harrow for it it does get fluffier when warm but nothing like ours!
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We had ours put down 2 years ago with a similar topping to this, you have to have a Harrow that rotivates or as Leannepip states it comes to the top. We have an arena mate and it works well. Surface is great. I had a rubber surface a few years ago and didn't like it. Plus my arena is outside my kitchen window so I didn't want look at a load of black rubber. Mine looks like a a mini beach, and more importantly the horses like it ��
 
Hi Asha - thanks for your comment. Aside from the look of the rubber was there another reason you didn't like it ? Our arena would be behind a hedge so I wouldn't have to look at it per se.
 
I think there are issues with disposing of the surface at the end of its life with rubber. I think as rubber is classed as a different kind of waste you have to pay more to dispose of it. Having a nice light surface is certainly good.
 
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