Arena Sand

[O So]

I am pretty much ready to add my top layer on to my small scale arena. I am still not sure what I want exactly, but I am leaning toward some type of sand. I was wondering what kind of sand is commonly used for arenas? I am looking at sand online at one of our local dirt/rock/sand dealers, but I am not sure what sand to look at to price it. Do any of you happen to know a name of a sand that is used? I see several types on the site, including, fill sand, coarse sand, plaster sand and so on.

 

[Riverrose28]

We currently have play sand in our indoor round pen. I hate it! It gets very dusty and I have to keep watering it down. I have discussed with Hubby on tilling it under, and topping off with shredded pine mulching. I would be curious to hear from others on this subject as sand seems to float up in the air and gets on everything, hate it, hate it!

 

[tifflunn]

We have red construction sand ( that the only way we have heard it described) in out outdoor ring- its pretty solid- our biggest problem is when it does get wet we need to turn it over as it gets hard ( we run a make shift harrow like contraption) on the back of the lawn mower. We have been here 5 years and will be adding a load of sand this year to bring it back up. Its ourdoors so lot of wind and very little protection but really hasnt blown away- our neighbours had a lighter coloured sand and will be replacing it this year with the same as our as theres has blown away. Ours has washed away.

 

[hobbyhorse23]

Sand is hard work to walk on when deep. It can make good roundpen footing as all that work is great for conditioning provided it's worked up to in small increments, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to drive a green horse through the stuff!

It also does get very hard after it's been rained on a few times. My "arena," a cleared area on the highest part of our land that we fenced off a few years ago, has some sort of coarse sand footing and it's been okay but only because it got packed down and then grass grew up through it which softened the hardpack. I like the crushed rubber stuff my friend has.

Leia

 

[Windhaven]

I use arena sand. They have river sand and arena sand here. The difference is price and stones. River sand is cheaper because contains some stones. Arena sand is stone free. My arena sand is gray in colour. It does get dusty when dry, but it never gets hard when wet. So I can wet mine down and it works just fine.

I think with any sand it will get dusty. Most indoor ridding arenas have indoor misters to help keep the dust down.

I think for the best footing the arena sand is the best wet or dry.

 

[disneyhorse]

River sand is okay but does tend to have some rocks... "washed concrete sand" is pretty good and not always a bad price.

Fill sand is usually the cheapest, and can be decent depending on what they have at the time and in the area, it's a gamble.

I suggest you get samples from them, they will usually send little baggies of the sand, so you can see the quality of them and choose that way, as it will vary a lot.

Andrea

 

[O So]

Wow, thanks for all the great responses!!

I am having such a hard time figuring out what i want to use. I want something that is easy on his feet, but something that wont be hard to run in. I am thinking of having 2 or 3 inches of sand on top of the dirt. I have also thought of getting some sand, rotor-tilling it in the dirt, then adding a 2 inch layer on top.

Here is the lot so far. I will probably start a before after thread of the project once we get things closer to being done. Basically all that is left to do is the base and putting up the arena fencing.

O So is already going over there to play with the dogs and I think it is going to be perfect to exercise him in.

Well, once I get it finished.

Like I said, it is a small scale arena! LOL It looks smaller then it actually is in the pic though! I think it is going to end up being something like 28 by 30 or something. I haven't measured it off yet!

 

[Sandee]

Instead of trying to describe what I've read I found this website:

http://www.abiequine.com/products/arena_consulting/index.php Scroll towards the bottom of the page and there is a group of videos to choose from. One of them is on the type of sand used for arenas. Very informative!