There are a few ways you can keep costs down in your dressage arena and still have a decent place to school horses. We're considering a standard 66- x 198-foot dressage arena, have six or fewer horses, and are not running a busy boarding or showing operation for horses, which would put much more wear on the ring.
Base First
The ideal arena has a base, a sub-base, and a surface. The sub-base is the ground underneath the topsoil that needs to be compacted for maximum density. The base, usually some kind of crushed stone or stone dust, goes next. Then, the surface footing goes on top of that. It's best to have all three layers for optimum drainage and stability. But you can get by without a sub-base, which will save you some money. (People with clay soil may have more trouble trying to skip the sub-base, because clay doesn't drain well, and the surface can get easily sodden.)
Identifying what kind of soil you have will dictate what materials you use to build your arena. Donna Foulk, a senior agricultural program coordinator at the Rutgers (N.J.) Cooperative Research and Extension, says that because regions vary so greatly, a local soil scientist is key to putting in a home arena. In New Jersey alone, for example, there is compact clay in the northern section of the state with topsoil near the middle and sand toward the coasts.
Other regions of the country allow for ever further variation. Beth Schwinn Greenbaum owns Renaissance Farm Sporthorses, Cypress, Texas. She put in an arena there and one in south Florida. In south Florida, what's usually under the grass is what residents call "sugar sand, a deep, loose sand that could easily injure a horse's suspensories. Locals stabilize sugar sand with a product called "sludge," a by-product of water treatment plants.
