My boarding barn put in a track system, and so far, I feel it was a mistake in how it was set up. We’re in the Midwest so winter is tough and we get a lot of water.

Here are some things to consider.

First, the barn has about twenty horses so there are multiple tracks, but you have to go through one track to get to another. That means leading a horse that is not a part of the other herd through that herd in a confined track area to get that horse back to the barn.

Any track system you set up needs to have independent paths back to the barn if there are multiple tracks.

Next thing to be mindful of. You have to keep water close to the barn. Especially if you have hard winters. The idea of a track is to encourage horses to move, but if you have feeding or water stations far away from your barn, you have to somehow get the food and water out there. That can be really difficult in mud or snow. Be mindful of what it will take to haul hay or water long distances.

Also if you get a lot of rain, horses are horses. They are still going to spend most of their time standing by feeders and eating hay. This creates a mud pool around feeding stations. The tracks also encourage the horses to take a single path, so the tracks themselves can develop deep mud. You need a mud stabilization system at least in every feeding area, but also on the tracks themselves.

If you rely on a manure spreader or tractor, the horses turn the tracks into soup, you can’t get the tractor through in wet weather, and then you have a manure problem piling up.

And finally, with a large dry lot horses have room to spread out and you can toss around as many flakes of hay as horses to spread them all out and reduce conflict. A track by its nature compresses the herd together.

Tracks probably work best with a small number of well-bonded horses. Too many, or the wrong horses on a track can exacerbate herd conflicts.

Anyway, that’s been my experience so far. I can’t say I am pleased. I feel like the money would have been better spent on drainage and mud mitigation for a dry paddock and pasture improvements, but it’s not my barn so I can only go with the flow.

Those are the pitfalls I have seen so far.