Cover-All: The Eventing Choice

When Carrie Wehle wanted to increase her expertise in eventing, the sport that she has competed in for the past decade, she knew she needed the perfect riding arena. "I simply got tired of going to someone else's steel or wood riding arena and spending the day riding in a "not large enough, poorly lit environment," says Carrie.

Carrie and her husband Justin Andre, began to research riding arenas that would meet their specific individual requirements. The requirements on Carrie's checklist were specific to the riding experience; plenty of natural light, a healthy airy environment, lots of room, and a calm environment for the horse and rider. With Justin's background as a Project Manager for a major construction company, his building requirements were more technical; a quality engineered structure, safety, little or no maintenance required, fast delivery and efficient install timelines. The riding arena that met both of their expectations was a steel framed fabric covered building manufactured by Cover-All Building Systems.

The Cover-All riding arena keeps my footing perfect and the natural environment of the building is better for the horse's mind. The bond and trust between the rider and horse is so important in this sport." Their new Cover-All® TITAN® riding arena is 100' wide x 200' long and the installation of the twenty thousand square foot building was complete in just two weeks. "Running and jumping couldn't be better", Carrie is quick to share. "Eventing is extremely time consuming. If you want to keep a horse healthy to compete, the horse has to keep fit and injury-free."

Eventing is a three-day Olympic sport which measures the rider and horse's performance within a cross country course, a stadium jumping course, and a dressage test. In a sport where the horse and rider compete over three days, injury is always a probability. "There is no way you can plan for everything. Aside from injury, a horse can get sick, become moody, cold weather can freeze the footing and make exercising risky, I needed a building big enough to minimize the risks I can control," states Carrie.

During the research stage, Justin's concern was regarding the strength of fabric. "I deal with steel, mortar and wood everyday on multi-million dollar projects, I wasn't too sure about a tension membrane building, but walking into a Cover-All building and experiencing the environment, and seeing how it was constructed really intrigued me. I personally have seen large wooden structures which have collapsed because of wood rot, so a wooden structure was not in the running simply from a maintenance point of view, and a steel building is too much like walking into a giant refrigerator," says Justin. After researching Cover-All® buildings, Justin was certain that the Cover-All® building was the ideal choice for Wehle Farms. "Every time there is a huge wind storm with winds exceeding 70 mph, more neighbors become convinced of the building's strength. The building has no problem handling the wind and snow loads," adds Justin.

Since the arena's construction, Wehle Farms has attracted a number of borders and interested riders. With their new Cover-All®, Carrie and Justin are successfully 'showing their customers the light!"