Are you aware that many people are interested in finding why horse arena footing is important?
As an equestrian, horse arena footing is one of the most important principles to understand. The term footing refers to the surface of your arena that your horse trains on, and it’s much different from your native soil. Preparing pudding actually implies a level surface with a few inches of material that is groomed by an arena implement to actually soften or disturb the surface and to smooth over any inconsistency.
What this conditioning will do is to make the footing more consistent so that as your horse strides, each footfall feels the same. Footing material can vary with geographical location and riding discipline—different materials like sand, Clay, flame, dirt, and fiber products.
Many people take delight in asking this question, and the answer is no. As a rider, It is very necessary to have a confident horse. Whether the rider trails for pleasure and preparing for a competition, or already a competitive rider with a specific discipline; having the confidence is essential, and it cannot come from ordinary dirt from a horse’s perspective. Confidence comes from three areas:
- Good training practices to ensure consistency.
- Security of their wingman base below the footing material.
- The comfort that consistent top provides your top dressing or footing is essential to protect your horse’s joints, tendons, and ligaments from excessive concussion in injuries. Since strains can also result from working on unlevel surfaces.
Security of their wingman base below the footing material
The comfort that consistent top provides your top dressing or footing is essential to protect your horse’s joints, tendons, and ligaments from excessive concussion in injuries. Since strains can also result from working on unlevel surfaces.
Sometimes riders don’t stop to think about the amazing ability a horse has to sense its surroundings and whether the footing they’re riding on is secure or not. Believe me, when your horse senses that he could slip because of poor bass or slick top surface, his entire body changes taking most of his mental focus and athletic ability away from it.
ORONO BIOMECHANICAL SURFACE TESTER
The Orono biomechanical surface tester, or OBS T was developed for use on racecourses in the United States, and then was for equestrian arena surfaces. So, this is the old BST the robot hosts. This falling part mimics the load of a horse when the horse would land after a fence. There are sensors and accelerometers that measure both horizontal and vertical forces as the roof hits the ground, and those sensors measure the response from the ground. This technique is used to actually measure what the horse would feel when it jumps on this surface.
IMPACT FITNESS
Here we are looking at the five different parameters; the impact firmness.
The impact of the hook justice the hook touches the ground, and then cushioning is reflected in the deeper layers of the surface. Cushioning is how much the forces can be dampened. The next thing is the responsiveness. So, it’s important that there is some kind of elasticity in the ground. The third thing is grip, which is quite obvious, it should be an adequate grip. And finally, the uniformity. uniformity is basically the four other parameters of how they vary over the whole arena.
THE REASON WHY GOOD FOOTING IS IMPORTANT FOR HORSE ARENAS
The footing standard is a measurement of the functional properties of the footing. Functional properties mean basically measuring the horse fields; this helps to get the framework for how this measurement is done.
The absolute main objective of good footing is for the welfare of the horse, minimizing the risk of injury, while of course, still maintaining performance. Minimizing the risk of injury is, of course, not only about functional properties, It’s actually how you use the surfaces. So, from a central ideology, it’s very important to train your horses on different surfaces.