# 100 x 80 arena experiences or insights?



## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

In the U.K. If anyone has a private arena they are usually 20m x 40m roughly 122' x 66 and this was the size of an indoor arena I worked at and ran jumping shows. I could fit a course of 10 - 12 fences in there. The wings were narrower and had a wing that hung over the sides of the outside. 

Plenty of room providing you know the distances between fences.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

Are you talking outdoor? Not closed in? 

Ours is roughly 140 x 75 and we can only fit about two fences and a cavaletti. If we really wanted to squeeze more in, we could probably put four (two on each of the long sides), and a diagonal caveletti in the middle. You need to have enough room to turn. We have found that with three fences, it's tight, and we have small horses (14.2 and 14.3). We haul my daughter's jumper to a competition sized ring a few times before show season starts so she will have enough room to complete a full course because we could never do a full course at home. And her horse behaves differently when he is a bigger arena because he knows he can stretch out more and take bigger strides. 

Maybe figure out the length of your poles (ours are 10') and jump standards, and lay them out on a sheet of paper with the dimensions of the arena. Figure out how many strides you would be able to get between jumps and calculate distance using a scale drawing of your arena.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

That is a decent size ring to put fences in BDK...
It is how you utilize your space that makes or breaks any size arena.
Of course having bigger is really nice, but this size is more than adequate to ride and work in.

This goes for you too Acadian...
Become creative and not look at only straight lines and along a rail...that is limiting your learning ability.
You can place fences along short sides, long sides, in corners, along diagonals and make some "bending" lines...
Favorite expression of one of my instructors was, "Go where you look, look where you go"...
Do not always use a rail and fenced side to keep your mounts approach "straight" but ride the horse between your legs with you keeping it moving forward in direction as needed.
Do not always make it a straight approach, but teach the rider to look/peek around a corner, _see where they are going,_ look-up and steer.
Ride deep to your corner and make your turns count as something...so many "cut" a turn they can lose 5 - 8 strides is not uncommon. Put some cones in the arena to teach you to ride a turn deeper. 
Don't make everything a even distance, but shorten and lengthen those distances so the rider and horse team learn to "rate" their stride not just go flat out or one-speed and striding length.
Do bounces, in-and-outs and add an occasional ground pole to work over.
Most any fence or series of fences can also be ground poles laid out...

Personally, I hated to just go roundy-round along the rail when jumping...
I very much enjoyed having different obstacles to work on... over fences and on the flat...
A good one I enjoyed was ground poles...yup ride them straight down the line..
Now change it up and do them as a serpentine...now do those at a trot and when you get good do them at a canter and don't spread them out to far in distance but collect and send your horse forward in a rhythmic cadence...great place to do and learn a flying change, perfect them as you are changing direction and leading foreleg often. 
A great place to learn true balance and quietly being astride too.
_*Not* easy to do._ 

As foxhunter said.... 10 - 12 fences strategically placed can work in a arena of this size...
Use 10' rails not 12' and instead of using wide wing standards use narrower standards or some simple uprights with multiple jump cups...
If you need to make it look a wider standard put a bush or something next to it for depth. and add objects underneath those rails to change perceived solidness of those fences.
When not "jumping" drop the rails and lay them to the side gives you more obstacles to train around, steering, looking for those balanced turns and rating that stride...
That arena can absolutely work and work well with some imagination.
Enjoy.
:runninghorse2:...
_jmo..._


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## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

You can set up jumps like this down the center with the standards touching and as long as the jumps are wide enough they can be jumped from either direction or you can make a series of roll backs and jump every other jump. They can be jumped in a serpentine or loops. Top of the V is wider than you see and there is space between the V's. You can make a Y with the jumps in the center and have a jump that caps the top of the y along the rail. If you type in "jump course "the y"" it should come up and you can see the pattern. I have also ridden jumps set in a circle pattern, on a serpentine and an X leaving plenty of room in the corners. 

\/ \/ \/


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## ClearDonkey (Nov 27, 2016)

I personally had a 100' x 200' arena, and I didn't care to jump in it - I would rather put jumps up in our big pasture. The most I had ever set up in the arena were probably 8 jumps. Sure, it was fine to jump a course in, but I never was just jumping a course - much of my riding was working on the approach to and from the jumps, which was not fun doing, surrounded by jumps on all sides. When the time comes, and I have space to do as I please, I would much rather have a smaller arena, maybe 100' x 60' for just riding on the flat, and stick to having my jumps in a pasture.


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## Acadianartist (Apr 21, 2015)

Sure you can cram a bunch of jumps in a small area. But a) it won't be the same when you compete in a regulation sized course. So try to get out and practice on one of those a few times before a competition. What often happens is that on a much bigger course, horses have more room to really stretch out and run. They can sometimes get pretty excited about this, and go a little too fast. You should get used to judging large distances, not just short ones. And b) it's difficult to do any real work on things like distance, etc. in a small area. What I mean by this is that there is a lot of work to get ready for jumping which doesn't involve the actual jump. For example, my daughter's coach will set up poles to count strides on the approach to a jump. That takes up a little more room, so in tight quarters, is nearly impossible to do.

So yes, you can jump in a small area, but it won't be the same, and I personally do not advocate cramming a bunch of jumps in there. Too risky. But that doesn't mean you can't set up a few, and just work on parts of a full course. In other words, plan out what a full course would look like, and divide it up into quarters. One week you do one part until you've got it down. The next week, focus on the next part, etc. Eventually, go to a competition size arena, and put it all together. To me, that makes more sense than trying to cram a full course into half the space. If you always shorten distances between jumps, you and your horse will never learn to judge longer distances. And there's a safety issue. When we tried to add more jumps into our small area, my daughter took a very sharp turn because there wasn't enough room, and she came off her horse. That has never happened in a competition sized arena.


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