The Dish on Dirt

2:55 am

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What you put your equestrian barn or riding arena ON is as important as where you decide to put it.

The variables involved in evaluating the appropriateness of the site you’ve chosen are well understood and it’s mostly a matter of going through the process.

Structure of the soil

It may seem odd to talk about the structure of soil but what we mean, put very simplistically, is how much space there is between the granules that make up the soil and how those granules clump together. We want to know this because it […]

Riding Arena Footing: Anatomy of a Forelimb

4:16 am

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Equine Care

As we wrote about the importance of the proper footing for the kind of equine activity you’re engage in, we mentioned that poor footing can be hazardous to your horses health in many ways.

We wrote:

“The forces carried through your horse’s hoof during movement are tremendous. When the hoof strikes the riding surface, the response from the surface is either concussive, absorptive, or reflective.”

Watch this fascinating video, created by Dr. Jonathan Merritt for his Ph.D. dissertation and you’ll have a better sense of how those concussive forces are distributed by an extremely […]

Equine Superstardom

3:26 am

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Equine Events

The 65th annual Del Mar National Horse Show is about to get underway in San Diego.

This is a huge event in the equine world and features three types of riding over the three weeks of the event: Western, Dressage, Hunter/Jumper.

The show debuted in 1946 with 350 riders competing for $20,000 in prizes. The show was part of the San Diego County Fair and so it remained until it outgrew the fairgrounds in 1979.

This year will see more than 3,000 horses competing for over $350,000 in winnings.

Del Mar has […]

Riding Arenas: Getting Your Footing

2:13 am

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Equine Care, Facility Planning & Design

I’ll bet we’re not the only horse enthusiasts who find the biom echanics and forces of horse movement fascinating.

Some of the people who study such things are the people who develop footing for riding arenas.

What is Footing?

Footing is the term we use for the surface laid down for horses to move on during exercise or horse-riding events.

Competition to be the company that supplies footing for high-visibility equine events is fierce. This benefits all of us who love our horses because it means the development of better and better […]

ArenaSlide – Riding Arena Window

6:06 am

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Facility Planning & Design, Products

ArenaSlide: The Ideal Window for Riding Arenas

Can you imagine your riding arena with this beautiful sliding window?

You could almost feel like Zorro (or at least like Antonio Banderas) riding in and out of the Lair of the Fox.

Only Zorro didn’t actually have a door this cool.

And this is not a door.

This sliding window is an alternative to shutters or garage doors to provide ventilation and daylight in your arena. I have to say that we’re pretty proud of the new window, created with our friends at Real […]

Riding Arenas: Best Practices

10:13 pm

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Misc.

This time of the year, the best option in many parts of the U.S. for training, exercising, and generally spending time with your beloved equine is to head for the indoor arena. (In the southern hemisphere, it’s summer!)

To remain on good terms with our horse-riding community, let’s review the rules of etiquette for any horse riding arena that is big enough to handle multiple riders at once.

Always remember that the first rule is to follow any posted rules.

What time to ride

Any large arena frequently used for multiple riders […]

The Riding Arena: Year-Around Equine Enjoyment

12:31 am

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Facility Planning & Design

We’re going to talk a lot about arenas in the coming months. We love to use them, we love to design them, and there’s more to use and design than meets the eye.

Riding Arena Utility

A covered riding arena immediately opens up your equestrian activities, whether they be dressage, jumping, or just exercise and fun, as something to be enjoyed throughout the year, rather than only in the summer months when the sun is shining.

It’s also much harder to come up with excuses to not spend time with your horse if […]

Jimmy, Put the Horses in the Barn … er … Stable

3:19 am

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Misc.

“If a farmer fills his barn with grain, he gets mice. If he leaves it empty, he gets actors.”
-Sir Walter Scott

“The stable wears out a horse more than the road.”
-French Proverb

Aside from amusing us, the quotes above actually tell us something about the difference between a barn and a stable. The essential difference revealed is that stables are for horses (and other domestic animals) and barns are for actors.

Ok, not really for actors. But clearly the idea is that barns are considered multi-purpose structures and stables are for horses. You […]