The
2010 League Footing Academy
Hosted
by the South Point Equestrian Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, January
15th and 16th. There were participants from Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, Mississippi, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Wyoming.
The Academy was taught by renowned footing specialist
Bob Kiser. We had two great days of teaching, demonstrations and
group discussions. Several people brought dirt from their facilities
for Bob to analyze and give recommendations on how to make their
arenas better. Bob brought samples of different types of soil that
he would
recommend as well as samples not recommended. Bob demonstrated the
effects of adding the right amounts of sand or clay and water to
sub-standard soil making it an
acceptable footing. We covered a lot of “ground” in
a short time and didn’t even leave the facility. We learned
how to create a good footing from the base to the finished product.
We talked about arena conditioning, from depth control to proper
moisture, dust control and drainage.
Synthetic footing was a topic of interest; we weighed the benefits
against the cost and the lack of perfection and longevity. The general
consensus was that it was too
expensive for most applications, but thought it might be perfected
and affordable in the near future. It would be impossible for me
to tell you all the benefits and the wealth of information received
at this Academy. I have been working arenas for fifteen years and
have attended three of these academies and still learn something
new each time. The
most important element of an equestrian facility is good footing,
and I think we all agree that satisfied competitors with sound horses
generate repeat business. These academies are designed to help us
obtain the knowledge to create and maintain the footing to its fullest
potential.
So if you haven’t attended a footing academy yet, I would
highly recommend you and your staff take advantage of the network
of knowledge created by the League Footing
Academy and its participants. I believe these educational opportunities
should not be passed up, as it is time and money well spent
.
Respectfully,
Carrel Haught
Southwestern Fair Commission
Tucson, AZ
|
