Building your own arena... from scratch

When I first moved to the farm in Wolseley I had to start from scratch with everything. I was given a small piece of land on which to create my own Equine piece of heaven.

I cleared the grass and leveled the ground and this is what I used to train on for 7 years.  I got to a point that I could no longer continue training on my home made surface.

So we got a quote from Martin Collins S.A. to do a 60x20m dressage arena for us. As we have our own digger and a lot of the equipment required we decided that it would be easy to do it ourselves. Peter was happy to advise us if we needed help. We had one site meeting with Peter and discussed all the details.

We started by getting quotes. Everyone always says “Get at least three quotes”. Although this is tedious as not everyone gets back to you, it was well worth it, as the price varied enormously.

Now that I had prices for all the materials needed, we were able to get started with the clearing of the site. 

I had previously used the same site but we had taken the grass off the top. It rode well but with the south ester the sand always moved diagonally across my arena. And for years I had to use our digger to return the sand from one corner back to the other. Some areas got thicker and others got harder. The site has therefore become un-level over the years.
Clearing the site was easy. Leveling it required a bit more thought! First we divided the arena into squares with sticks in the ground as level gauges. We then used our own dumpy level, scraper and tractor to get a 1’ slope for water runoff. Some shovel work by hand was also used and there was a lot of debate as to whose side was the most level and who had the best idea of how to fix it all!  We then brought in the 10ton roller – What fun I had driving this!

Now that we had a clean and level site, we started to drive in the laterite base course. We put down a 75mm layer and then rolled it with a 5 ton roller. Keeping it wet we added another 75mm layer. Making it 150mm in total thickness. We rolled it again keeping it damp at all times. The rolling compacts it while keeping it level.

We then enclosed the arena with 6m lengths of treated scaffolding planks. I had them cut into 3m lengths so as to reduce the chance of them warping. We bolted each join together with angle iron and coach screws. Again I am lucky enough to have access to a fully equipped work shop. So Patrick and I together made all the brackets ourselves.

Now we had a clear, level site on which we had rolled and compacted 150mm of laterite base coarse. Enclosed it with treated scaffolding planks. The arena was ready for some sand. This I was lucky enough to source in Wolseley. Once transport was arranged it was delivered and we spread it by hand. This was back breaking work. The sand was spread at a 100mm depth across the arena.

Then I rode on it like this for a few months. The arena settled and I managed to save the funds needed to buy the fabulous fibre from Torque earth.

It was a very exciting day when 12 bales of fibre arrived on the farm. Each bale weights approximately 350kg. So we again divided the arenas into squares. We loaded the bales onto the tractor and then drove them onto the arena pushing one off into each demarcated square.

We opened the bales and spread the fibre in 40’ heat. It was hard work! Once evenly spread by hand we then wet the arena thoroughly. We borrowed a rotovator from our very kind neighbor. This mixes the sand and fibre. We then used our tractor and kongskilde to mix in the damp fibre and sand even further.

I then hired a 2.5 ton roller to level and compact the surface. By this time I was exhausted! After a good night’s rest I was very excited and nervous to test the arenas surface. It was and still is amazing! The horses travel on top of the surface instead of into and out of the sand.

 For those who think that having kids tests your marriage-try building an arena! I guess my husband would say if you think marriage is hard trying being married to an Equestrian!

Thank you to Peter and his team at Torque earth, my neighbor, my husband and my team of guys.