Tips For Building A Barn Connected To An Indoor Ring
Posted on: 11 January 2023
If you're building a horse barn, you may be thinking of incorporating an indoor ring into the design. It's nice to have a dry indoor space where you can ride in the winter or when the weather is poor. And it's generally easier and more cost-effective to build one building with both a ring and stalls — instead of building a separate indoor one. If you do decide to take this route, here are a few tips to follow.
Put stalls on one or both ends, not along the ring.
You'll see some barns built with stalls lining the indoor ring. The issue with this design is that when you have horses in those stalls, they may be active and moving around while you are riding. If one moves suddenly, it may spook the horse in the ring. Experienced riders may not mind this and may even think it's good for their horses to get used to the commotion while under saddle. But if you're teaching lessons or having younger riders out to your barn, this design can be an issue.
You're better off with stalls on either end and the indoor ring in the middle. The stalls can face each other with an aisle in the middle so the stall fronts are not immediately visible to horses in the ring.
Raise the ceiling.
When you're riding indoors, you need a significantly higher ceiling than when you're just stabling horses. You would not want anyone to bump their head on the ceiling when taking a jump. To better utilize the extra "height" over the stall area, put in hay lofts. This is an efficient use of space, and it keeps you from having to build a separate hay shed.
Have a plan for dust.
The one downfall to this design is that the dust from your indoor ring gets over all of your items stored in the barn. Thankfully, there is a way around this. Build an enclosed tack room so you can at least protect your tack from the dust. Also, consider using rubber chips in your indoor ring as footing. Even if you don't go 100% rubber, some rubber chips in place of sand will keep the dust load down.
With the tips above, you can build a better barn with a connected indoor ring. This is a design most barn owners enjoy once they work out the kinks as recommended above.
To learn more about farm building options like indoor rings, contact a construction contractor in your area.
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