From page 33
Walk out a further 20m of
your non-stretchy string tie a
string roughly at right angles
loop and place it over the
to the 40m length and make
peg. Now measure out 40m
another small loop. Let's call
down the long side. Ensuring this C.
that this length is 5m away
Now measure a further
from the nearest fence, make 44,72m and make a loop,
a loop at 40m, knock in a peg placing this over the first peg
and place the loop over the
(A).
peg. We'll call this B.
Pick up loop C and move
outwards until both the
lengths of string are taut.
Knock in a peg at this point.
You now have two sides of
your arena, with a perfect
right angle between them.
To ensure that the other two
sides are parallel, use the
string in the following manner
(see Fig 2 alongside):
Take the loops off the pegs
and put the first loop that was
on peg A on to peg C, and
the last loop you put on to
peg A on to peg B.
Now take loop C and walk
backwards till both lengths of
string are once again taut and
knock in a peg. Voila! A
HORSEMANSHIP
perfectly rectangular 20 x
40m dressage arena!
(Mathematical genii here will
recognise the practical use of
Pythagoras' Theorem (“the
square of the hypoteneuse of
a right angle triangle is equal
to the sum of the squares of
the two adjacent sides” .
Lesson over).
For good order's sake, the
lengths of the string necessary
for a 60m arena are 60m,
20m and 63,25m.
Assuming a 40m arena, you
3
will need 80m of river sand
to fill it to a depth of 10cm.
Over time the horse will push
this material into the corners
of the arena and form a
“track” with its hooves. You
will periodically want to
loosen and smooth this. A
small diamond-tine harrow
drawn behind a tractor or
even a quad bike or lawn
tractor will do this adequately.
Or you can buy a purposemade arena rake.
35
www.sasmallholder.co.za
You can also rotavate the
arena, but the action of a
rotavator over time is to
break up the particles of sand
into dust, which you want to
avoid.
With your dressage arena in
place, your child will want a
set of dressage letters to
enable it to practice simple
dressage tests.
These can be painted on to
old 5 litre paint tins, 20 litre
plastic drums or pieces of
sheet iron bent into a right
angle. (Ideally you want the
Continued on page 36