We strive to take excellent care of our indoor arena footing.   Manure removal from the arena is a requirement at Gale's.  This keeps the sand footing pure and dust free.  Even so, we regularly water the arena and groom the sand footing with the TR3.

John and our new arena groomer - the TR3.  We call this the "SANDBONI"!

GREAT NEWS! 

WE NOW HAVE RUBBER CRUMB FOOTING IN OUR INDOOR ARENA

AND WE ARE LOVING IT!!!!!!

We are lucky to have a supplier of rubber crumb move right into the Elmira area.

Fennell Recycling in Elmira Heights is recycling old automobile tires into rubber mulch.

In 2004, we put 21 tons of the rubber, mixing it in with our old sand (that turned to concrete after just one lesson), and    GUESS WHAT!! - no more compaction problems!!  PLUS, the footing just keeps getting better and better  as more of the old sand mixes up with the rubber.

This worked out so well for us, we let the rubber/sand mix settle, flattened and hardened into place and then added 22 more tons of rubber crumb (2500 tires!) to provide a three to four inch layer of pure rubber crumb over the top of the rubber/sand base layer.  The result is PERFECT footing for all activities.  We maintain the footing daily with hand raking and watering as necessary for the minimal amount of dust control needed.  The pure rubber has nearly no dust.  We are very happy.  Thanks go to Fennell Recycling for producing this neat product, and also to Crooker Landscaping of Horseheads, NY for doing the trucking for us.

We also now have a 60' round pen in place for training.  Can't say enough about the benefits of a round pen.  As Monty Roberts says, "Get one."

The outdoor ring is also one of the largest in the area with good sand footing. Usually, in the summer months, we set up the jump course out there, and there is still plenty of room for casual riding around the jumps. We painted all of our outdoor jumps so that there are bright colored obstacles to challenge horse and rider.

In 2006, we purchased a full size, 20 x 60 meter BLOK dressage arena and set this up in the middle of the outdoor arena, placing the jumps around the outside....still leaving room for hackers to ride around the outside of the jumps (it's a big ring).

Celebrating our twenty years of operation, in 2008, we were able to replace all of our pastures fencing (over two miles of fencing!) and redesign our paddocks and pastures.  Using "Flex Rail", and "Hot Cote" wiring we have an assortment of 18 pasture/paddocks and two six-acre pastures.....all electrified.  Each turnout has a tube gate with those real nice latches.   Below is a photo looking out towards the majority of the pastures that move down the west side of the property and out behind the old wooden outdoor riding ring. One of our round pens is in view, as well as a couple of fun "jump logs".  We are very happy with our new "state of the art" turn-outs.  We have enough pastures to allow for rotation to maximum grass growth and proper grounds maintenance.