Things to Consider For Construction of Horse Riding Arenas
By Connor R Sullivan
Horse arenas are a place of dream, specifically when the weather is bad. Horse lovers always want to have all weather arenas. They get maximum pleasure out of their passion of tending horses. It is an inseparable part of their life. Horse lovers are well aware of needs of daily exercise by these animals to keep fit. They get drained out thinking of what all need to be considered to work out best plan for riding arenas. Planning and designing arenas involve consideration from dimensions of necessary supports besides riding ground itself.
Planning such domains of horse activity require thought over certain practical aspects of necessary supports. Ancillary buildings and facilities like offices, living areas for people, offices, tack rooms and feed storage; and water supply, lighting, drainage, ventilation, waste disposal and suitable entrance/ exit are basic points needed to be kept in mind. These spelled out prime factors may change in very different ways in different geographical regions. While planning for ground of arenas, one has to workout for perfect surface cushioning. Riding surface of an arena should not be rough to cause injury to the hoofs. Slippery or too smooth surface finish can make horses to fall off easily or be off the track. Costs of construction as well as cost of maintenance certainly need to be taken into consideration. Arena surface should have reasonable softness, but not dusty.
These factors lead to question of selection of proper surface covering. There is a presumable extent of softness of the ground cover. One should be more dependent upon locally available constructional materials to avoid cost of transportation. A good riding ground will have combined effect of these characters to offer maximum grip for the hoofs. But, it has to also avoid being too soft to let the foot sink deep causing strains to the foot muscles. Many types of surface material are in use today, natural to man-made ones. Surface preparation begins with laying compacted base layer and finally overlaying the top layer with selected material. Choice should be based on local availability.
Fast drainage of arena is an important factor in designing open to sky arenas. An easy approach is to create raised center of the ground with gentle slop towards edges. Whole of run down water is collected by the drainage along outer boundary. Anther way is to provide herringbone layout of connected drains all over for final discharge. Construction of drainage is expensive, but remains only alternative in absence of usable natural slope of the land.
Arenas can be open to sky or covered for all weather use. Covering large space over riding area is expensive due to cost of structural metal frames and roof covering metal or fiber sheets. Standard size of arenas are 100' x 200'. Depending upon land availability, length may be more. Smaller commercial purpose covered arenas measure 60' x 120'. The truss come in Standard 60' as such do not cause additional hassle of joining members for required lengths. Column poles are normally placed 12' apart.
Basic knowledge about arenas is better. An owner can take better decisions for construction of new ones or maintenance of existing ones.
Connor Sullivan has visited many horse arenas with his daughter who rides horses in shows. He watched his daughter in the riding arenas doing jumps with her horse.
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