building a manege in the southern dordogne

[andy c]

Can anyone help us as we are moving to the southern dordogne this summer and need a manege built on our land for my wifes two horses. Have had one eye watering quote already, but are there any manege building companies that specialise that anyone knows of? We will be near Monpazier and it would be nice to hear from anyone horsy near there as we'll also need a farrier, advice re where to buy horse food etc. Any help most welcome.

[PaysBasque]

Hi Andy,

have you been through the archived threads? There have been several posts on this subject. Anyway, I had my manege done by somebody who normally does Terrassement. They dug and treated the rectangle according to my instructions and then put on the sand. I would have preferred sand and rubber, but I can't find any rubber chippings here. Most people around me, that is to say Riding centres, do a sand/fibre mixture, but that seems to become very hard and its expensive.

[andy c]

Dear Christiane, thankyou for your helpfull advice. I will look at past threads(new to all this) My wife had rubber shavings in the UK and it wasn't cheap but it was excellent. Hardly any maintenence at all...I just used to kick down the banked edges twice a year on her manege. I can understand that sand gets hot and baked without a covering..I did wonder if rubber would stand the heat of the sun but it does on car tyres. It is something I will look into further as in the UK we didn't have to irrigate at all. Kind regards Andrew

[PaysBasque]

Hi Andy,

I don't actually know what the weather is like in the Southern Dordogne, but I was just thinking that

a) you could check out surfaces at your local riding centres, and

b) if you really want rubber, check out local 2nd hand tyre dealers.

I find that as long as I roll my manege once a month it actually works fine with just sand, and in August, when in tends to be the hottest and driest weather, I give us a holiday and don't ride!