new footing!! (and a new-ish arena)

Santa came early to our farm this year, with a big gift that will potentially have a huge impact on how our facilities fare through the winter.

Not sure I've mentioned this before, but our farm is a nonprofit organization. Meaning we operate a bit differently from the farms I've worked and ridden at before. There are pros and cons, but one major pro is our ability to accept donations. In this particular instance, we accepted a gift from a footing company looking to get a double whammy of freeing up space and also getting a year-end tax write off. And the gift? LOADS of high-tech footing.

view from inside the 'new' arena

Over the summer, the farm converted a corner of an upper paddock into an arena that is very close in size to a regulation small dressage court (20x40m), but maybe a hair narrow. The majority of the new footing went into this arena.

arena corner between H and C

We are hoping that this arena, independent of the footing, will handle winter better. It gets direct sun through more hours of the day than our lower arena, which is bounded on three sides by tall trees, and on the fourth by a hill. Plus this upper arena should theoretically have better drainage, just by the physical properties of being on higher ground.

So perhaps it won't freeze as often or as deeply as the lower arena, which becomes unusable for up to three months out of the year.

magnified view of the materials

The new footing itself is interesting too. I don't know the specifics, but there are a variety of materials included in it. Some of it appears to be coarse black rubber, and astroturf is involved - likely those green fibers. There's probably sand too, either natural or synthetic.

pretty darn close to actual-size photograph

It's also a pretty dark color, which will hopefully help it absorb more warmth from the sun and thaw more easily.

corner between A and K

Right now it's a tad deep in the new arena, especially at the ends. Bali particularly dislikes the deep stuff too, poor long suffering baby that he is... But I think they're gonna roll with it for a little while and see how it settles with some grooming and maintenance (and use, lots of use haha).

piles in the regular larger arena

The company dropped a couple loads off in our main arena too, tho as of the time I took these photos it hadn't been mixed in yet. 

'wat r dis?' - isabel

And honestly I'm not thoroughly convinced that there's actually enough. We'll see if they bring any more, I guess. Or, if it ends up not settling in as much as anticipated in the upper arena, we'll transfer some down to this ring?

sniff

It's pretty cool stuff tho, even if it's kinda in the way right now lol.

snuffle

I'm pretty excited at the possibility of being able to ride more seriously at home through the winter, since readers may recall that last winter we ended up hauling out 2-3x a week just to school. I'm not sure a couple piles of dark footing will resolve all the lower arena's freezing problems (it literally turns to concrete) but perhaps it'll help a little bit?

dig!

The new upper arena is super tiny, especially when you start packing in lesson students with questionable steering. And it actually doesn't have any lighting currently anyway, so it won't help much in evenings unless that changes... But whatever. I'm still considering it an awesome Christmas present and am hopeful that we'll make good use of it!