Grass at the SA Derby, fibre at most shows, and river sand at home; riders have strong opinions about which surface is kindest to their horses, but what does the research actually show? HQ went through the studies to find out where the evidence is solid, where it is thin, and what that means for the arena you ride in every day.
The Toyota SA Derby is a rare chance to see our showjumpers leave the fibre and jump on grass. Watch the warm-up, and you see riders checking studs, feeling how the grass rides, and asking each other how it is going on the far side of the Bob Charter Arena. Then most of those horses go home to train on fibre, or on the river sand that still lies underfoot in a great many South African yards.
It is tempting to ask which of these surfaces is best, but from looking at the research it’s clear that this is the wrong question to be asking, and it is the research itself that explains why. When scientists have looked closely at arena surfaces and lameness, the material a surface is made of has turned out to matter less than how it behaves, i.e. whether it stays even, whether it goes deep when wet, whether it is maintained, and whether the horse working on it is used to it.
That is good news for anyone who cannot afford a new arena. It also means the honest answer to ‘what’s the best surface?’ is more interesting than a simple ranking. This article sets out what the evidence says, how strong each finding is, and what nobody knows yet.
In the fraction of a second a hoof is on the ground, the surface has three jobs, and they pull against each other.
1. Landing. The hoof should slide a little and slow down gradually. That small slide is part of the horse’s own shock absorption. A surface that stops the hoof dead passes a sharper jolt up the leg, affecting the bones, joints and soft tissues above.
2. Support. In mid-stance, the hoof needs grip, and the surface needs to hold its shape so the limb stays stable under full load.
3. Push-off. The surface must be firm enough to push against. Too deep, and it keeps giving way as the horse tries to drive forward, which costs energy and changes how the limb is loaded.
A surface that is too hard fails the first job, but one that is too deep fails the third. Most of the science of arena surfaces is about finding a workable middle between these two, and then keeping the surface there.
The biomechanics studies give that idea some numbers, although most use only a handful of horses in their tests:
• Hard ground brakes the hoof more abruptly. At trot, horses on a hard, gritty test surface had significantly higher hoof deceleration and loading rates than on sand. In fact, front-foot soreness in showjumpers has been particularly linked to competing on hard ground.
• Softer ground reduces twisting on turns. French researchers fitted horses with a force-measuring horseshoe and trotted them on small circles. On fibre sand, sideways forces and twisting in the hoof were lower than on asphalt, because the edge of the hoof sinks slightly and redirects the force up the limb (Chateau et al., 2013).
• In jumping, take-off matters as much as landing. Swedish work with hoof-mounted sensors found the highest impact accelerations in the take-off stride, with landing forces on the front legs of a similar size (Hernlund et al.).
• Grip has a downside. In a study of four horses jumping a 1.10m oxer on 12 arenas, the fetlock flexed faster on surfaces with higher shear strength. The authors suggest the leading foreleg on landing may be most at risk where a surface grips hard.
• Deep going is hard work. Horses have higher heart rates in deep sand than on firm ground, and tired horses move less precisely.
Ultimately, the research suggests that there is also no single ideal surface. A survey of more than 3000 of Swedish riders found dressage riders and showjumpers want somewhat different levels of firmness, responsiveness and grip (Egenvall et al., 2021). Many yards use one arena for both flatwork and jumping, so that arena is always a compromise.
For a question riders care about so much, the injury evidence is surprisingly thin. We could find only two sets of data that directly link arena surfaces to lameness or time off in sporthorses. Both are worth understanding, including their weaknesses.
The British dressage survey
In 2005, researchers at the UK’s Animal Health Trust sent a questionnaire to all 11,363 members of British Dressage. Owners returned details on 2554 horses, covering their health, training and the arenas they worked on (Murray et al., 2010a).
A third of the horses had been lame at some point in their careers, and 24% in the previous two years. When the researchers looked for patterns, several surface factors stood out:
• Horses that mostly worked on an arena that went deeper in wet weather had more than five times the odds of recent lameness (odds ratio 5.6).
• Horses mostly worked on sand had almost twice the odds (1.9).
• Horses mostly worked indoors were more likely to have been lame than those worked outdoors.
• Arenas that became patchy, uneven or boggy were linked to more lameness; arenas that stayed uniform in dry weather were linked to less.
A follow-up analysis of the same survey looked at which arenas developed those problems (Murray et al., 2010b). Wax-coated surfaces and sand-rubber mixes were associated with fewer problem properties than plain sand, sand with PVC, woodchip or grass. Woodchip was most linked to slipping and sand to tripping. Privately owned arenas, presumably used by fewer horses and maintained more often, had fewer problems than those at livery and training yards.
The elite showjumper diaries
The second dataset comes from 263 elite showjumpers in Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the UK. Over 2009 and 2010, their riders kept daily diaries of every session, every surface and every day the horse could not work (Egenvall et al., 2013).
Across 39,028 horse-days, 6% were days lost, and more than three-quarters of those were orthopaedic. The strongest finding had nothing to do with footing: horses with the most varied training lost days at roughly a tenth of the rate of those with the least varied. On surfaces, the Swedish data showed that horses doing a moderate amount of sand work (four to 12 minutes a day) had more than double the rate of days lost of those doing four minutes or less, while horses doing more than that were no worse off. The five UK riders, who all spent substantial time training on waxed sand, had very few days lost.
How much weight can these studies bear?
Both studies are careful, peer-reviewed work, and both have real limits.
• They show association, not cause. A sand arena might be linked to lameness because of the sand, or because of something that tends to come with it, such as an older arena, more horses or less maintenance.
• The dressage survey relies on owners. Fewer than a quarter of members replied; lameness was owner-reported, and the authors note their final model’s predictive power was only modest.
• The showjumper study is small. Thirty-one riders took part, and compliance was poor in some countries. The authors themselves advise caution.
• The data is now 16 to 21 years old. Arena products have changed considerably since.
Therefore, these studies are best read as strong hints, consistent with each other and with the biomechanics, rather than settled fact.
What about racing?
The largest surface datasets come from US Thoroughbred racing, where an analysis of over 1.5 million starts from 2009 to 2012 found fatal injury risk lowest on synthetic tracks, then turf, then dirt. Racing is a different sport at very different speeds, so these figures cannot be transferred to an arena. What they do show is that engineering a surface for consistency can measurably change risk.
With those limits in mind, here is what the evidence says about the three surfaces South African riders meet most.
Grass
Good turf has a quality synthetic surfaces try to copy. Swedish surface researcher Lars Roepstorff has described how, on a well-kept grass arena, the force of a landing spreads far down into the ground rather than stopping near the top.
The catch is that grass is a living surface, and moisture changes everything. The same field can be firm and grippy on a dry morning and slick or holding after rain, and it can vary from one end of an arena to the other. In the British dressage survey, grass was grouped with the surfaces that more often showed problems such as slipping, tripping or unevenness.
Eventing, where every horse gallops across turf, offers the most useful research. A UK study of cross-country falls recommended keeping take-off ground good to firm as one of three simple ways to reduce horse falls. A 2023 study measured the going on 81 event courses and developed a standard way to classify it, finding that soil moisture and a simple impact tester together explained 80% of the variation in how cushioned the ground was (Graydon et al., 2023). In other words, going can be measured, not just judged by feel.
Fibre
Fibre arenas combine sand with synthetic textile fibres, and premium versions add a wax coating. The fibres act a little like roots, binding the sand so it resists shearing and stays more stable under the hoof. In the British survey, wax-coated surfaces were associated with fewer problem properties than plain sand. Peer-reviewed French studies found significantly lower impact shock when horses trotted at speed on a waxed track than on crushed sand (Chateau et al., 2009; Robin et al., 2009). In separate French field tests, waxed fibre sand gave the most cushioning of the training surfaces tested, and peak force at gallop was about 10% lower than on turf, although that comparison was demonstrated on a single horse.
However, fibre is not a set-and-forget solution. Research from the University of Central Lancashire showed that moisture, compaction and drainage all change how a sand and fibre surface performs, and Animal Health Trust research found that harrowing measurably alters a waxed surface. A fibre arena that is too dry, too compacted or unevenly watered can behave quite differently from the one the supplier installed. Even a premium surface changes with use: a UK study found a synthetic dressage surface became significantly harder as a competition progressed (Blundell et al., 2010). Fibre, as many of us know, is also the most expensive option.
River sand
Plain sand has the weakest showing in the research. In the British survey, sand was the surface most associated with tripping, and horses mostly worked on sand had higher odds of lameness. Part of the reason may be the grains themselves. River sand is rounded by water, and rounded grains roll past one another, so the surface is only really stable when damp. The FEI White Paper on arena surfaces identifies moisture as the single biggest influence on how consistent a sand surface is (a conclusion drawn from racetrack research) and notes that sand is generally strongest at around 8% to 17% moisture. As it dries, it can loosen and deepen; overwatered or poorly drained, it can go boggy. Those are exactly the changes the dressage survey linked to lameness. Wax and polymer coatings were developed largely to make sand less sensitive to water, which may help explain why waxed surfaces fared well in the British survey.
Two findings make that picture less alarming. First, horses that worked on sand more often had lower risk than those using it occasionally, which suggests horses adapt to the surface they know. Second, the problem properties the research flags (depth, patchiness, unevenness) are largely about management. A consistently watered, harrowed, level sand arena is a different proposition from a neglected one.
The base matters too. A 2018 Engineering News report described the conventional South African arena at this time as a clinker base topped with river sand. The British researchers concluded every arena should have a proper base, recommended limestone and advised against crushed concrete. Whether clinker performs well as a base has not, as far as we can find, been studied.
If one idea runs through all of this research, it is adaptation. Bone, tendon, cartilage and muscle all respond to the loads placed on them. A study of young Thoroughbreds in their first 13 weeks of training found measurable changes in bone, some tendons and joint cartilage (Firth and Rogers, 2005). Tissues tuned to one surface are, in effect, prepared for that surface.
The sand findings fit in with this. In the dressage survey, each extra weekly session on sand slightly reduced the risk linked to sand. In the showjumper diaries, horses doing a moderate amount of sand work were worse off than those doing none or a lot. The authors of both studies drew the same conclusion: a horse that meets a surface only occasionally may be more at risk on it than a horse that works on it routinely, even if the surface itself is no better.
That has a direct bearing on grass shows. The Swedish team pointed out that at outdoor shows, horses often warm up on an artificial surface and then jump on turf, and suggested this could raise the risk for horses not used to grass. It is a hypothesis rather than a tested finding, but it is a reasonable one, and it applies to any horse that trains only on fibre and competes on grass once or twice a year.
So should we cross-train on different surfaces?
This is where the evidence needs reading carefully, because it is often summarised as ‘varied surfaces prevent injury’, but that is not quite what it shows.
In the showjumper study, varied training was strongly protective: the most varied programmes had about a tenth of the days lost of the least varied, but variation there meant the mix of activities (flatwork, hacking, jumping, lunging, fitness work and competing). The study also measured how varied each horse’s surfaces were, and that measure showed no clear link to days lost. Similarly, in the dressage survey, lunging was associated with lower lameness risk, but the authors acknowledge this may partly reflect which horses get lunged rather than the lunging itself.
There are other limits, as well. Mature flexor tendons, the structures most at risk in jumpers, have only a limited capacity to adapt to training, so surface variety is unlikely to toughen the tendons of an established older horse. And very little research has looked at slow, everyday work on different surfaces at all.
The experts themselves lean towards variety. The FEI’s Equine Surfaces White Paper, written by eight researchers including Rachel Murray, advises that horses train on a variety of surfaces so they are conditioned for competition. Its authors also suggest that training and competing on very different surfaces may harm performance and raise injury risk. However, they support the first point with a 1991 conditioning textbook rather than injury data, and present the second point as a hypothesis. The recommendation therefore reflects expert judgement more than measured results.
The fair conclusion is this: varied work is well supported, and working a horse on the surfaces it will compete on makes sense as preparation. Expecting a change of surface, on its own, to prevent injury goes beyond the evidence.
The most useful message in the research is that a lot of what makes going good or bad is within an owner’s control, whatever the surface. As the lead author of the British studies, Dr Rachel Murray told Horse & Hound that a modest arena that is well maintained could, in theory, serve a horse better than a premium one that is neglected.
Here is what the evidence supports, and how strongly.
Before a show on grass
No study has tested a preparation programme for moving from fibre to grass, so the following is reasoning rather than proof. If you have access to safe, level grass, a few weeks of schooling on it lets the horse and his tissues meet the surface before competition day. If not, it’s still a good idea to walk the arena when you arrive and feel how the going differs across it. It’s also worth noting that a horse fit enough for fibre may tire sooner on holding ground.
Studs and shoeing are where riders most want guidance, and where the evidence is thinnest. The FEI White Paper found no published research on how studs affect horses during sport-specific movement, and no evidence-based guidance on which studs suit which conditions; riders choose from experience. The paper also notes that at the 2004 Athens Olympics, injuries to three showjumpers were attributed to the interaction between their studs and the surface.
For all the strong opinions in the horse world, arena surfaces remain an under-researched corner of equine science. The gaps are worth naming, because they are where the next round of advice will come from.
The FEI’s Equine Surfaces White Paper, published in 2014 and led by Dr Sarah Jane Hobbs, gathered the research of the time and was described as a living document to be updated as studies appeared. We could not find a newer edition.
None of this means riders are guessing completely in the dark. The research we have points consistently in one direction: the surface your horse works on is only as good as its consistency, its base and its care, and horses do best on going they are prepared for.
At Burghley, the going is a year-round project. Clerk of the course Philip Herbert and his son Guy manage the cross-country track as a sports surface rather than farmland. It is fenced off from livestock and vehicles all year, and has been watered by an underground irrigation network for around 26 years.
Their target is ground a racecourse groundsman would call ‘good to firm’. That is also the condition a UK study of cross-country falls recommended for take-off ground. In the final weeks before the event, the team checks soil moisture with a meter and firmness with a drop test, alongside a surface consultant. Philip also walks the full 7000 m track regularly.
The overriding aim is consistency across four soil types, from clay by the lake to limestone. The ground is aerated before it is watered so the water soaks in rather than running off, and night irrigation in a heatwave is never allowed to make the going uneven. Clover is removed because, although it survives drought, it is slippery underfoot. Take-off and landing spots get extra attention because every horse uses the same patch of ground, particularly where skinny fences are used. Recycled rubber and fibre from synthetic arenas are even worked into the soil to add stability with some give.
Sources: Pitchcare (2023); Horse & Hound (2026).
DID YOU KNOW?
Burghley’s cross–country track is fenced off all year round and has an underground irrigation network covering the whole course. This was installed around 26 years ago and involves 4500m of pipes linked to one computer–operated pumping point at the lake.
References
• Chateau H et al. (2013) Kinetics of the forelimb in horses circling on different ground surfaces at the trot. Veterinary Journal. • Egenvall A et al. (2013) Days-lost to training and competition in relation to workload in 263 elite show-jumping horses in four European countries. Preventive Veterinary Medicine 112: 387 to 400. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2013.09.013. • Egenvall A et al. (2021) The descriptions and attitudes of riders and arena owners to 656 equestrian sport surfaces in Sweden. Frontiers in Veterinary Science. doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.798910. • Firth EC, Rogers CW (2005) Musculoskeletal responses of 2-year-old Thoroughbred horses to early training. New Zealand Veterinary Journal 53: 377 to 383. • Graydon RW et al. (2023) The development of a standardized protocol for quantifying eventing cross-country ground. Biomechanics 3: 343 to 361. doi:10.3390/biomechanics3030029. • Hernlund E et al. Hoof accelerations at hoof-surface impact for stride types and functional limb types relevant to show jumping horses. • Hobbs SJ et al. (2014) Equine Surfaces White Paper. FEI. • Holt D (2013) Investigation of equestrian arena surface properties and rider preferences. MSc thesis, University of Central Lancashire. • Murray RC et al. (2010a) Identification of risk factors for lameness in dressage horses. Veterinary Journal 184: 27 to 36. doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.03.020. • Murray RC et al. (2010b) How do features of dressage arenas influence training surface properties which are potentially associated with lameness? Veterinary Journal 186: 172 to 179. doi:10.1016/j.tvjl.2010.04.026. • Blundell EL, Northrop AJ, Owen AG, Lumsden PJ (2010) The short and long-term changes in mechanical properties of a synthetic equestrian surface. International Society of Equitation Science Annual Conference, Uppsala, Sweden.
• Chateau H, Robin D, Falala S, et al. (2009) Effects of a synthetic all-weather waxed track versus a crushed sand track on 3D acceleration of the front hoof in three horses trotting at high speed. Equine Veterinary Journal 41(3): 247 to 251. • Robin D, Chateau H, Pacquet L, et al. (2009) Use of a 3D dynamometric horseshoe to assess the effects of an all-weather waxed track and a crushed sand track at high speed trot: preliminary study. Equine Veterinary Journal 41(3): 253 to 256. • Tranquille CA et al. Effect of superficial harrowing on surface properties of sand with rubber and waxed-sand with fibre riding arena surfaces. Veterinary Journal. • Fetlock motion and arena surface properties in jumping horses (2020 conference abstract). • Hoof deceleration on two surfaces at the trot. Equine and Comparative Exercise Physiology. • Eventing cross-country fall risk factors.
Other sources: IFCE Equipedia (Sequisol results), Penn State Extension, University of Kentucky, World of Showjumping (Roepstorff), Horse & Hound (Murray), Brisnet (racing data), Engineering News, Canadian Thoroughbred, European Trainer.
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