Lunge pens and all weather turnout

Lunge pens

A round pen is a genuinely useful thing to own. Young horses can be worked loose, horses coming back into work can be exercised in a controlled space, and lungeing on a true circle on a consistent surface is considerably better for a horse than lungeing on a corner of the arena.

The commonest size is around fifteen to eighteen metres in diameter. Smaller than fifteen and the circle is tight enough to put real strain on joints. Larger and you lose the control that made it worth building.

The construction is an arena in miniature: excavation to a fall, drainage, compacted sub-base, membrane and surface. Panels or post and rail on top. Skipping the groundworks is what turns a round pen into a bog, and it is the reason so many of them sit unused.

All weather turnout

An all weather turnout pen solves a specific and miserable problem: the horse that needs to go out in January without wrecking a field or itself. For horses on box rest coming back into work, for laminitics who cannot be on grass, and for anyone on heavy clay whose fields are simply gone from November to March.

It is built to the same principle but with a surface chosen for standing on rather than working on, and with drainage sized for a pen that will be used every day in the wettest months. Muck removal is a daily job, so access for a barrow or a small tractor is part of the design rather than an afterthought.

Planning

A lunge pen or turnout pen is usually a smaller planning question than a full arena, but it is not automatically permitted. It depends on the size, the surfacing, whether the land is already in equestrian use and whether you are in a designated landscape.

We will tell you at survey stage whether we think it needs an application, and we can handle the application if you would rather not.

Cost

A properly built lunge pen is considerably cheaper than an arena but it is not a trivial purchase, because the groundworks are the same work at a smaller scale. Anyone quoting a round pen at the price of the panels alone is quoting you the panels alone.

We price them from a site visit like everything else, and we will be straightforward about whether the ground you have in mind is the right spot for it.

Surfaces for a lunge pen

A lunge pen surface takes a different kind of punishment from an arena. The horse works on one circle, in one direction, at speed, which concentrates wear into a band rather than spreading it. A surface that migrates will build a bank against the fence and dig a track inside it within weeks.

That pushes the answer toward a surface with good binding. Sand and fibre is the sensible minimum, and wax is a genuinely good choice here for a pen that will be used hard, because it holds together under exactly the repetitive loading that pulls a plain sand surface apart.

Depth needs care too. A pen laid deep is punishing on a horse working a constant circle, and joint strain on a tight circle in deep going is the injury this facility is supposed to help you avoid.

Siting, which decides half of it

The instinct is to put a lunge pen in the corner of the yard where there is a gap. The better question is where water currently goes. A pen sited at the bottom of a slope is receiving everything the slope sheds, and no amount of drainage inside the pen changes what is arriving from outside it.

Shelter matters as well. A pen tucked behind a building is usable on days when an exposed one is not, and a young horse being worked loose is easier to settle somewhere without a hedge full of wind on one side.

We look at this on the same visit as the ground and the access, and we will say if we think the spot you have in mind is the wrong one.

Panels or a built fence

Steel panels are quick, movable and safe if they are the right height and have no gaps a foot can go through. They are the usual choice for a lunge pen and they can be lifted if you ever want the ground back.

A built post and rail round pen looks better, lasts longer and is permanent. It costs more and it is the right answer if the pen is a fixed part of the yard rather than something you may relocate.

Either way the groundworks underneath are the same, and they are the part worth spending on.