New Footing at Devonwood

I was at Devonwood this past weekend photographing the Heart of the Valley dressage show. 3 rings of competition which could have easily been 4 rings with the number of entries on the waiting list, but alas, the scheduled revamping of the footing in the Terrace arena was delayed by a series of events having to do with the current state of our global economy. It would seem that when you purchase big things from Europe, there is a longer wait due to all of the layoffs at the shipyards over there and when it finally arrives over here, People that would normally be loading and unloading ships have been laid off as well. Compounding the delay, once finally off the ship, before it could get through customs, they insisted on having it unpacked to X-ray it all, repacked and finally put on a train to Portland.

So the delay of the under structure of the new footing that was to arrive in March, commenced. But it will be worth the wait as the footing looks to be state of the art. Take a look at this image I shot of the arena. The base is rubber mats, made especially for good drainage. The top layer is sand.
On a side note, the footing in some of the other arenas and warm up areas has been reworked and replaced as needed. The Sylvan ring looked like it was riding pretty well.
Each year as I witness the various maintenance and improvements that go into keeping Devonwood shipshape for the shows, I just have to feel grateful that there are people like the Rattners willing to do it. We certainly are spoiled.