Riding out and about on unlevel ground is a great way to develop a horse’s balance and confidence. But in the indoor arena, the schooling can have a different focus and so the footing becomes even more important.
Important, but not always easy to get right as we found out this past week.
Thank you for this video. It was very helpful. What type of material do you use for the paddock areas outside of the barn? We live in the north east part of the U.S. where we have wet springs and cold/wet winters.
Hi Tara. I have used sand in and around water troughs and at gates. It provides some drainage which helps and for a while at least, it gets less mucky. I’ve also used limestone screenings and they hold up even better but can get quite hard, depending where you use them. But it’s a constant battle because of our weather conditions. It sounds like you have pretty much the same conditions where you are.
A big mistake I made years ago was using wood chips at the gates. It looked absolutely gorgeous for about a month and then it started breaking down with the rain and the horses milling around. What a mess! It ended up getting crazily deep and we had to dig it all out…It’s burned into my memory because I had to do it manually…my back still reminds me! LOL Good luck