HORSE ARENA PREPARATION — GOLD COAST, BRISBANE & SCENIC RIM

Building a horse arena that holds up year-round on the Gold Coast and hinterland is a base-and-drainage job before it's a sand job. We've prepped arenas across the Gold Coast, Tamborine, Canungra, Scenic Rim and Brisbane's southside acreage belt — dressage, jumping, lunge, all-weather. The brief is always the same: a level pad that drains and a sand profile that doesn't migrate.

Standard sizes we work to: 20m × 40m dressage, 20m × 60m competition dressage, 30m × 60m jumping arena, plus custom sizes for round yards (15–20m diameter) and lunge rings. We GPS-set out the corners on day one so the finished pad matches the planned dimensions exactly — no creep, no off-square corners.

Drainage is everything on Gold Coast acreage — the rain dumps and clay holds water. We grade the subgrade with a 1–2% fall to a single low corner, install ag-line at the toe, and run it out to a soak pit or stormwater connection. Without proper drainage your sand turns to soup in the wet and the base pumps up through the surface. Get it right once and the arena stays usable through the wet season.

The base is where the budget goes. After the cut we lay 100–150mm of compacted road base or recycled concrete aggregate (RCA), rolled to a smooth, square pad. On rocky hinterland blocks (Tallai, Bonogin, Tamborine, Canungra) we often hit basalt during the cut — that gets broken with the hydraulic breaker and rolled into the base, saving on imported material.

Sand profile sits on top: typically 80–120mm of washed river sand or arena-spec silica sand depending on discipline. Dressage prefers a slightly deeper sand for cushion; jumping and barrel work runs shallower and firmer. We coordinate sand supply through Gold Coast quarries and can deliver/spread to your spec, or work to a sand profile your trainer or arena consultant has specified.

Geotextile (geofabric) between subgrade and base is non-negotiable on clay sites. It stops the base migrating into the subgrade under hoof loading and keeps the drainage layer working. We supply and lay it in the same mobilisation as the base material — small extra cost, huge difference in arena longevity.

Acreage suitability: most of our arena work is on 1–10 acre hobby blocks through the Gold Coast hinterland and Scenic Rim. Tamborine, Canungra, Mount Nathan, Beechmont, Mudgeeraba acreage and Bonogin all have the space. We bring 5T excavators, a Positrack for fine grading, GPS levels for the cut, and tipper trucks to import or remove material. Most arenas are completed in 5–10 days from first cut to handover.