I have had horses for most of my life and we always just made do with a yard or small paddock to train. When we moved to Grenville over 30 years ago I built a round yard for handling youngsters.
Each night I would come home from work and dig a few holes. I just put it out in the side paddock, with easy access but out of the way. It has served me well, but I can’t say I even thought much about the location.
We had never had an arena, so building one was more of a challenge. I was really fortunate in that our local earth moving contractor was super helpful. He said at the outset that the critical aspect was citing. Lacking modern political correctness, but plenty of common sense he said ‘you can either put it where your wife wants it, or put it where it should go’. After plenty of discussion we put it where it should go – half way up the hill rather than on the flat. The excavation provided the soil for the lower side of the arena. If we had put it on the flat it would have cost thousands of dollars more for fill and been much harder to drain.
All up the earthworks and kaolin topping cost about $5,000. It was about another $2,000 to fence it and I used split conveyor belt for the rails. The arena has provided us with a year round work area for 10 years now and I couldn’t be happier. We will top it this year with unwashed river sand which should make the surface easier.
That our arena and round yard have worked so well is partly good luck, but the citing was good management. I know of people who have spent between $50,000 and $100,000 on arenas that are still to wet to ride on for half the year.