Poor Man's Arena

Last year one of my neighbors put their house up for sale.  In addition to selling their house they decided to sell their riding arena panels.  Seeing an opportunity to build a small practice arena for B Troop, I  acquired them.    

Storing the panels out of the way for a while, I commenced to groom a decent piece of ground on which to place the arena.  An area of our stables that had previously had horse pens on it was cleared and was available.  I dragged the ground for weeks to try and smooth it out.  It was uneven and was full of rocks and metal spikes that people had driven in to it to hold retaining boards in place.  The boards had rotted away long ago and the spikes were buried just below the surface of the ground.  I punctured two tractor tires before I realized what was going on.  Then, I used a metal detector one day after a heavy rain and dug those suckers out of the ground.  

Poor man's lighted arena.  Note the yellow work lights.  

With the help of the troopers and my own family members, we erected the corral panels and created a 160 x 60 foot arena.  The ground was still uneven, but over time, the weather and people riding horses on it gradually flattened it out.  

We held our first riding school class in it last summer and it worked very well.  Fortunately, the sun sets so late in the summer time that we didn't need any lights in it at night.  We could ride until 7:30 pm without a problem.  However, with our new riding school class beginning now, when the sun sets at about 6 pm, I needed to come up with some lights.  

Using end-of-year money, I picked up four halogen work lights with telescoping poles that could lift the lights up to six feet in height.  However, we determined that it would be better if we could get them higher to prevent blinding the riders.  The troopers tried lashing them to the panels which kind of worked, but it occurred to me that by taking the legs off the work lights I could slip them into the pipes that I was using to rebuild horse shelters.  So, I bolted the eight foot long poles to the arena panels and slipped the lights into them.  With electric outlets located within 100 feet of the arena, a few extension cords provided the power.  Viola! Poor man's arena lights.  They don't give great light but enough to illuminate the arena well enough to work in.  

So, with a little luck and some ingenuity we now have a year-round practice arena.