Arena Repair

I've been putting some additional effort into my arena over the last year or so. This will probably end up being three posts - one about the arena repair I did last year (this one), one about working the footing I'm doing now, and one about the options I'm considering for the future. 

When the arena was put in, we really didn't know much about arenas, so it's grated in the wrong direction, all the water in the winter rushes diagonally down to the gate and into the creek. Steadily this took away my base from the corner by the gate, which made my oddly shaped arena even more triangular. 

The creek is along those trees at the top of the
photo, the gate is on the righthand side at the top,
the longside on the bottom (which is the most normal)
is a bit less than 40 meters if you're curious

My IG story explaining

The damage was pretty crazy! We caught it about a year ago and I'm glad we caught it when we did. As we swept and drew away the sand, we kept finding all these waterways. 

All the damage to the base

Another angle of the damage

Luckily, my brother is amazing, I got him to help and we both dug out the long side of the arena by the creek so that we could allow for more drainage on that side. 

Digging out the sides of the arena

We also got a load of blue rock and did our best to repair the base and somewhat plug the gate area up from allowing water to go that way. It was definitely a learning experience.

First layer of base rock

Second layer, we'd water and then pound it

Many more layers

After the first rain, we learned a few things and fixed them! 

Water will just find somewhere else to go oops

That definitely worked, the base itself I haven't ridden on all that much, but it at least prevented more damage from occurring, and opening up the long side for more drainage did help. 

MUCH better

Since it was better, but still not perfect, I ended up investing in a roller. It's filled with water and we can easily hitch it up to the ATV and roll the arena in not very much time at all! The roller made a HUGE difference, with barely any sand (in comparison) leaving the arena in the last few rainstorms of the year. 

The dog didn't want to be left out

When I post about this again, I'll go into more detail about what I'm doing right now to further improve my arena situation. And then we'll talk about the future since I'd love some opinions on that!