Stall mats over sand

My wife has decided the horse stalls need work. She wants them to drain better. The local vet has a sand floor with perforated mats so when she asked about it he told her to lay 6 inches of 1 to 2 inch gravel, cover with 5 inches of sand and add the mats.

To begin with, we had 8 inches of crusher run which set hard and wood shavings.

Now we have removed the shavings and added 5 to 6 inches of washed crusher run on top of that and she's added another 5 inches of playground sand on top of that.

We're ready for mats.

Anyone done anything similar? What's a good source for reasonably priced mats?

Suggestions?

We have something similar, but instead of a layer of crusher we buried several drums (open on both ends and filled with stone) then sand, then mats. We got a steal on mats getting them from a local semi-trailer company. They came in big rolls, were ones that had been pieced/riveted together, but were long enough between the jointed areas that they were perfect. It cost me about a 1/4 of what mats marketed for horses cost. They only real downside was that they didn't have holes, so with quite a bit of work and a few destroyed hole saw bits we made them work.

I wouldn't put sand under mats, it would shift a lot probably, I would put something like the big chunky rock they use for gravel roads. Make sure your mats are 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch, to.

Yes, I'm thinking the sand is going to shift. My mare was on it last night and after I raked it out tonight it seemed a bit firmer.

I'm hoping the sand will settle into the rock leaving only a couple of inches of sand exposed and thinking this is where I need to be patient for a day or so.

I haven't seen the vets setup, and my wife has been installing it. I'm still trying to figure out if it's going to work or not.

God bless her, it's been a lot of work, and I hope it works the way she wants it to.

She's still pricing mats, and if this works we have two more stalls to do.

My mare snorted and blew last night, so I don't think she's real crazy about it all.

MH, how much sand did you add? Are the pictures in your profile with the sand what you put in?

Maybe 6" of sand and lots of tamping. The mats we used I cut to length, 12' long strips, 4' wide for my smaller ones and 24' for the foaling stalls. They are heavy enough there's no shifting. I pull them out to put barn lime under and I have to use the skid loader and chain to get them out lol.
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Forgot to add, don't have any inside the stall pics on my profile. It was a fairly course, heavier sand - not the same as my arena but close to what is in the barn aisle.

I love my mats over sand. Would never do anything else!

Breezeways and stalls are laid over sand. I rented a commercial "tapper" before mats were placed. (50 stalls, breezeways are 14x200)

You will have ripples over the years, but we just pull the mats up and level as it happens, also "rodents" can also cause problems at times.

The advantage is having a softer surface, less stocking up in stalls, and if a horse breaks away and runs, they "make the corner" rather than go down on mats with concrete under them!

I also got this idea from my vet when I walked into his breezeway and notice how comfy his mats were under my feet!

The wife just called, she bought mats at TSC. I'm working out of town for a couple of days, can't wait to see how my mare likes them. Her stall is 10x20, and she's got two more 10x10's that she wants to get done before winter hits hard.