Spring is when yards and riding clubs across Cheshire start buying, borrowing and swapping arena equipment ahead of the season. Jump wings, poles, fillers, arena markers, dressage boards and the odd set of blocks all change hands privately, and none of it fits in a car or a horsebox that is already full. Arranging van hire in Warrington for a morning solves it, and collecting equestrian jumps is mostly a question of length, weight and what the gateway is like after rain.
Long, Heavy And Awkward All At Once
Show jumping equipment manages to combine every difficult characteristic in one load. Poles are long and rigid and must not be bent or leaned against anything. Wings are tall, heavy and prone to falling over, particularly the timber ones that have soaked up years of weather. Fillers are large flat panels that catch the wind like a sail. Blocks and cups are small, heavy and easily lost. A full set of eight fences is a considerably bigger load than most people picture, and the mistake is to assume that because it is going a short distance it can be piled in loose. The other complication is where it lives, since arena equipment sits at the edge of a field or in a barn at the end of a track rather than beside a road.
Why An Open Deck Handles It Best
A flatbed dropside van suits this load better than any enclosed body. Poles load along the deck in one movement rather than being threaded through back doors, wings can be laid flat and stacked, and the whole lot can be loaded from the side by two people working together. Just as importantly, everything involved is going to be wet and muddy, and an open deck washes off in minutes where a carpeted load area does not. Where the equipment genuinely needs to stay dry, such as new fillers or anything freshly painted, a tarpaulin properly strapped down is the answer rather than switching to a panel van you then cannot load easily.
Loading Poles Without Damaging Them
Poles want to lie flat along the length of the deck with their ends supported, not stacked in a pyramid that rolls. Lay the first layer, then strap it before adding the next, and use battens or the wings themselves to stop the outer poles working towards the edges. Wings go flat rather than upright, with the feet all facing the same way so they stack rather than tangle. Fillers lie flat on top of everything else where they cannot catch air. Cups, pins and small fittings go in a bucket or a crate in the cab, because they are the items that vanish and the ones that make the fences unusable when they do. Strap across the whole load twice and check it again after the first mile.
Getting In And Out Of A Yard Or Field
The access is usually the hardest part of the day. Yard entrances are often narrow with a gate that swings the wrong way, tracks turn to mud after a wet week, and a loaded van will sink into a field far more readily than the car that got in there last summer. Ask before you set off where the firm ground is and whether the vehicle can get to the arena or whether it stops at the gate. If in doubt, load at the hard standing and carry, which is slower but far better than needing a tractor to pull you out. Yards out towards Hollins Green van hire and the lanes around Glazebury van hire are exactly the kind of access worth checking first.
Buying Second Hand And Checking Condition
A great deal of this equipment is bought privately, and condition varies enormously. Timber wings that have stood outside for a decade can be sound on one side and rotten on the other, poles split along their length, and cups rust into their pins. Check before loading rather than after, because a wing that fails when a horse hits it is a safety matter rather than a cosmetic one. Count everything against what was agreed, since sets are almost always described as complete and frequently are not. Take a photograph of the load before you leave, which settles any later question about what was collected and in what state.
Fitting The Trip Around Yard Routines
Yards run to a fixed timetable and the middle of the day is usually the quietest window, after morning stables and before evening feeds. We are open Monday to Saturday from 8am to 4pm and closed on Sunday, so a mid-morning collection generally works for everyone. Where equipment is being collected from two or three places, or a club is gathering kit for a show, one longer hire across a weekend is more practical than repeated trips, and short and long term hire are both available with no deposit required on most vehicles. Booking at least two weeks ahead brings a ten per cent advance booking discount on selected vehicles.
Taking Jumps To A Show Or Clinic
The other reason a yard needs a vehicle is taking equipment out rather than bringing it in. Riding clubs run shows and clinics at hired venues, which means transporting a full set of fences to an arena, setting a course, and taking it all home again the same evening after everyone else has gone. That is a longer day than a straight collection and the loading discipline matters more, because the equipment is going out and coming back rather than being unloaded once. Number or colour code the fences so a course can be built without sorting through a pile, keep each fence’s cups and pins with its wings, and load in the reverse order of the course build. Allow more time for the pack down than the set up, since a wet arena at seven in the evening is slower than a dry one at nine in the morning.
Tell us how many fences you are collecting and what the track into the yard is like, and we will make sure you turn up in something that can get to them. Call the depot on 01925 396 222 before the weekend you have in mind.
