How to prepare arena footing in a flat clay based area.?

Question

I would like to set up a small arena to help me out with my training. My vision is a 50' X100' "watermelon arena" that can have one end blocked off to make a 50' hexagonal round pen. That center piece can be easily removed to leave a 50' X 100' for initial riding training. I will use this pen for beginning ground work and early riding.

The problem is our climate and soil.
It is flat as a board here and the soil is hard gray clay. It is slippery as hell when it is wet, several months of the year. In the summer it gets hot and can run 90 to 100+ for 90 days at a stretch. When it gets hot and dry (June July August) big cracks open up in the clay and it is hard as a brick.
This is a problem because all that expensive sand runs right into those cracks the first time it rains and just disappears from the face of the earth. 
Do any of y'all have any ideas of how to amend the footing?

And just to stop this in it's tracks, I do not ride in the heat of the day in summer.

zephania666 · Answer

The ideal solution is to remove all that clay, replace it with a thick gravel base, with top quality footing on that - usually a mixture of sand and rubber shavings.  Of course, this can run you $100,000.

If you know someone with a bulldozer who's willing to help, I'd remove the clay, put down gravel dust (decayed limestone), then top dress it with sand.

If you don't...  I'd keep putting sand on it and using it until the horses feet and the weather worked it into a nice amalgam of sand and clay that the weather won't wash away and that is sandy enough to be workable.

Jeff · Answer

you need to till the sand into the clay.... like farm plow and disc.

If you could afford it... have someone take about 18 inches of the native fill out... run a drain tile in the area... put a layer of crushed rock and top that with sand/clay topping

? · Answer

sand and horse manure and shavings might help. Id make my ring at least 60-75 feet wide if you have the space you won't be sorry.

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How to prepare arena footing in a flat clay based area.?

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