Professional golf has honored greens keepers. Major league baseball has revered groundsmen. And equestrian sports have John Dienhart.
Although the founder of West Coast Footings and creator of Red Master Harrows doesn’t have a career label as concise as that of his counterparts in mainstream sports, John has experience and knowledge that have become increasingly essential to and recognized by true horsemen.
In nearly 30 years of developing ideas, materials and equipment for maintaining riding surfaces, John has become the ultimate dirt doctor. Equally important, he and his wife Barb’s West Coast Footings, based in Central California’s Mokelumne Hill, has grown into a unique one-stop shop for all things related to safe and suitable footings for every riding discipline.
West Coast Footings’ offerings include equipment, namely the Red Master Harrow and watering devices, and footing materials for all types of dirt or sand, climates and usage. Knowledge, however, is the company’s most valuable asset. The finest equipment and footing material won’t do squat unless you know how to use it and maintain it, John asserts.
In addition to consulting public and private stable operators, John is kept very busy by show managers who want the safest and most successful surfaces for their competitors. In 2000, John was hired by the World Cup Show Jumping Finals organizers in Las Vegas, where he worked alongside the renowned European footing expert, the late Herman Ducek. Before and since then, John has been a fixture at equestrian competitions throughout the West Coast.
With that in mind, California Riding Magazine editor Kim F. Miller enjoyed an informative talk with John.

Kim: You have few rivals when it comes to knowledge of equestrian riding surfaces. How did you get into this field?

John: As a kid I started on a golf course. My uncle ran a country club golf course and my grandfather made a par 3 course. How a ball bounces and rolls on a golf course is all about the components underneath the grass. I learned a lot about air control then.
I moved to California (from Indiana) in the early 60s and got into the automotive side of things. I taught automotive technician classes at Fresno State. I ran two service stations, a big service garage for 12 years, and then I got a small tractor, for rototilling and mowing work.
One year a customer asked me to make a riding ring, and I said, “Sure, that’s easy!” Well, I did everything wrong! In the process of fixing those mistakes, I started learning about footing and I haven’t stopped since.
The next step in my education came when I was asked to do the footing on a cross-country course. As I walked the course with the event’s technical delegate, I kept noticing spots that looked better than others. But she said, “No, you have to walk on it, on the balls of your feet, to feel the amount of bounce and give.” After walking that seven-mile course, I began to understand that it’s never what a riding surface looks like, it’s what it feels like.

Kim: What are the main factors that determine good footing?
John: Air and moisture. It’s all a matter of controlling those factors. When a hoof hits the ground, the speed at which that ground compacts creates forward motion for the horse. If the speed of compaction is slow, the horse moves slow. The compaction speed is controlled by depth of the air pocket in the footing. If you want to slow the horse down, you create deeper air pockets.

Kim: Is it the harrow that controls the depth of the air pocket?
John: It is the “tooth” element of the harrow that does this. You set the tooth higher or lower to “loosen” or “tighten” the footing, which increases or decreases the depth of the air pocket.

Kim: As a competitor, it looks to me like your crews are simply “dragging the ring” between classes, but I see now it’s more complicated. How do all these factors come into play when you are maintaining arenas in constant, heavy use throughout a multi-day show?

John: Let’s take a hunter/jumper show at the Oaks Blenheim venue in San Juan Capistrano. You might have 1,000 horses in 11 rings. We’ll change the tooth depth on the harrow for each of those rings as needed, and continue to monitor and maintain the footing as needed throughout the day.

Kim: How precise of a process are you talking about?

John: I’d say there is a half-inch difference in the air pocket we want for a hunter class versus a jumper class. Generally, the jumper classes use higher jumps, so you want more cushion on the landing. In hunter classes, the fences are usually lower so you need less cushion, and the shallower air pocket better facilitates the smooth, fluent performances that are needed to win in the hunter classes.
Each discipline has its own optimum footing conditions. In cutting work, we can set the footing to affect the speed of the cow relative to the speed of the horse, because we know that hoof size affects the speed of compaction.

Kim: I assume you had to learn all this on your own, with a lot of trail and error?

John: Yes. I’d say it took me about 10 years to really understand it; to know for sure that I’m right.

Kim: How did it go working with Herman Ducek during the World Cup?

John: He taught me a lot about footing in indoor arenas, where air conditioning affects evaporation levels and, in turn, the footing. It was great to work with him. We’d start each day at about 4 a.m., then get together for a coffee break at 9 a.m. and compare notes.
Working with Herman gave me a great opportunity to understand my own knowledge and sort of grade myself.

Kim: How did you do?

John: Pretty good!

Kim: In many areas of equestrian sports, the Europeans are considered to be better than the Americans. Is this the case, in general, with footing, too?

John: No, I don’t think so. Many of the rings that Herman worked with were specifically built for that event, and that is somewhat typical for big equestrian events in Europe. They only have to be good for one week or so.
In the States we tend to be working with permanent, multi-use rings. So we are learning to create and maintain footings that can do dressage one day, western the next, and so on. We have to be more technical and use more equipment to allow us to change the air and water mixtures to create different levels of cushion.
I like the challenge. Recently I worked the California State Fair and I had to convert an arena that had just been used for a demolition derby!

Kim: How has demand for your increasingly sophisticated footing services and products changed over the years?

John: Demand is constantly going up, in part because the value of horses is always going up. In any sport, the athletes are getting better every day. The footing has to be as good as the horse. We see that more people realize that footing can change a horse’s performance.
If a dressage horse, for example, enters at A through a wet spot, he’s going to be nervous about slipping and falling through the whole test. Performances in any discipline can only be as good as the footing.

Kim: Let’s talk about maintaining a riding surface.

John: I’d say about half of our staff’s time is spent teaching people how to take care of what they have. It doesn’t matter how much you spend on equipment and products if you are not taught how to take care of and use them. If you know how to drive your tractor and set your harrow, you can seal your arena before a rain and reduce that ring’s downtime by 80 percent.
In non-rainy weather, proper maintenance affects how long an arena stays in optimal riding condition. Good sand can perform as well as the newest and most sophisticated products. The difference is the length of time that the footing stays good.
A basic dirt ring can be good for two to three hours. If you build a good base and devise a way to control the sand, your arena can be good for six to seven hours. If you add the right additive to that, you can now get 10 to 12 hours of use.
One by-product of a properly maintained ring, by the way, is that it’s dust free.

Kim: For stable owners or managers, what is the first step in creating a good riding arena?

John: We like people to send us a sand sample of the actual footing they are starting with. We can often get 90 percent of what we need to know from that little handful. Then we need to know about the climate and what disciplines the arena will be used for.

Kim: You and Barb have established West Coast Footings as a unique, full service footing company. What’s next for the company?

John: We want to provide more training opportunities, particularly on the Internet. We are working on something called a “webinar.” It will be an online seminar on what footing is all about and how to take care of it.

Kim: Thank you so much!

John: You’re welcome.

For more information on West Coast Footings and/or Red Master Harrow, please call the company at 800-585-7000 or visit www.wcfootings.com.