Planning Arena Upgrades

I'm constantly thinking about my arena. My current arena at the ranch is about 15 years old. When it was built, we didn't really know what it'd be used for, but within a year or two after it was built, I was developing a Grand Prix horse in it. Then it sat for a number of years before I brought TC to the ranch and started riding in it for real again.

I've been back and forth whether to keep TC and my future horses at the ranch long term, but I think I've made the decision that he's there to stay for good, even if I daydream for boarding facilities where the arenas are big and rectangular and have square corners and are watered and dragged by someone else. I could see boarding a future horse out for a while, but I do think that it wouldn't be a bad idea to sink a little effort into updating the ranch arena. 

More tractor work at home than at a boarding
facility, but at least it's fun!

My first task was to square off the arena as much as possible. It's kind of a wonky shape and as much as having a larger space would be great, having a predictable shape is honestly better for me. So I've been dragging it rectangular for a while, which is actually so convenient because it means I have a good spot for my Pivo, mounting block, to store my roller, and to have all my cavallettis. I've dragged it like this for months and I think am at the point where I'd be willing to move the fence in. 

The benefit of moving the fence in isn't just so that I have a rail on that one side to use. It also means that I can move the sprinklers over, get another sprinkler to have a better sprinkle pattern, drop the pipes under the ground so that they don't grow moss and make the sprinklers shitty, and I can also drop posts in locations where it'd be convenient to have them, such as at the quarter lines and where I could maybe set up letters for at least a short court. 

It's like the least rectangular thing, but you
can see where I could square it off

So that's the plan for this fall I think. My dad is confident that we can do it ourselves, which makes me nervous because I think he's where I get a lot of my "how hard could it really be" energy from. But my brother likes manual labor and I think he has some friends who could help too. 

I think I'll want to structure the existing weird corner as a storage area, put a gate there to easily bring the roller in, put in some pole storage so that I can bring jumps in and out, and I'll also have to figure out how my mounting block is going to work there too. 

We also get to redo my fencing, which has slowly been falling apart over the years. And I really want to figure out my Pivo situation. Like I'd LOVE to have a little dedicated Pivo spot where I can just bring the Pivo out on a small tripod or in a bag rather than on the giant tripod I have. 

Plus, in a perfect world, I'd love a speaker system where I can send music through bluetooth and be able to listen to music in my arena without using my headphones or playing it from my phone in my pocket. That feels like luxury and honestly may not be a thing. 

The now repaired corner

Once that gets all situated (hopefully this fall), I think the next big upgrade for the arena (next spring maybe) is going to be the footing and laser leveling the base. The arena slopes 2% diagonally toward the gate, which is why that spot suffered so much after years of storms. I repaired the base there and have felt comfortable riding in that corner, and now that we roll the arena during major storms, the water has been much easier to deal with. But it's still a 2% grade which is so much for an arena. 

The footing is also 15 years old, and while I have added sand here and there, it's got a lot of dust in it and so it sticks to my harrow and the footing isn't as good quality as it used to be. TC doesn't seem to mind, but if I'm going to be riding there for years to come, jumping on it again, maybe leasing something for the kids? I want better footing. Or at least sand with no dirt in it!

So I'm hoping to get a quote on what it'd take to scrape the existing footing, dump it onto my tracks, redo the base so that the repair is actually done properly, grate it so that it's crowned, or at least so that it's not a diagonal grade, and then add new footing and laser level it. 

He does love the ranch, and he loves
walking down the road to visit his
many animal friends

Hopefully I can make that happen next year! But honestly even just having a more consistent sprinkler situation inside an actually rectangular arena will be amazing.