Horse Arena Drags & Groomers

Regardless of the makeup of your footing, over time it will become uneven and the materials will become unevenly distributed. Your riding arena footing will become depressed in the areas where the horses run and jump more frequently. At best, this uneven footing can cause your horse to underperform. At worst, it can cause serious injury and discomfort.

With a drag, you can easily evenly distribute the materials, as well as dislodge materials that have bonded together. In other words, a drag allows you to maximize the talent of your horse and protect them from injury.

There are a wide variety of arena drags out there, and a number of companies that offer groomers and drags. You can quickly tell by the design, the quality to expect. But also investigate how long they have been building drags. Companies like Conterra (the models we offer) have been building drags and groomers in North America for over 30 years. This, in many cases is much longer than companies like ABI, Riata or Carolina Equipment.

The answer to this question depends on how many horses use the arena. If there is just one horse using it, dragging every 2-3 days should adequately redistribute and level the footing.

However, the more horses that you add the more often you will need to drag. Once a day works for most arenas, but heavily used arenas may need dragging multiple times daily. The important thing is to keep the arena surface as level as possible.

One of the most important aspects of dragging is timing it right. One thing to keep in mind is that it is much better to drag more than necessary. Regardless of whether you have natural or synthetic footings, ruts can easily form, and the deeper they become the harder they are to fix.

As soon as you notice any depressions — whether by sight or by walking on your arena — you should drag the arena. However, don’t wait until you see something. Consistently dragging your arena will increase its lifetime and improve the experiences of the horses and riders who use it.

Conterra is the only known manufacturer that approaches its designs like cars do. They continually improve and redesign based on personal testing and customer feedback. Thats why each year you will see new tweaks and adjustments based on empirical data to provide you with the best drag year after year!