A finished covered arena at night, its footing groomed dead level under rows of LED lights

Equestrian Design Group

Equestrian Design Group

Horse properties, arenas and house pads, planned and built from bare land by a builder who understands soil, water and how a property has to work.

Daniel Austin · Valley View, Texas · Building nationwide
Daniel Austin

Built on knowledge of the land

Good ground starts long before a machine moves. It starts with knowing the soil, how water travels across a site, and what every building and arena needs underneath it.

Daniel Austin has spent four decades building horse properties across the country: arenas, barns, pens, roads and the house pads that go with them.

Where much of the industry now relies on GPS, Daniel grades freehand with a precision few operators can match. He walks every property before any dirt moves, so the plan fits the land.

View from the cab of a Bobcat track loader with a laser-grading attachment, inside an arena building
Excavator loading a dump truck on an open site under a dramatic sunset sky
Land planning

From blank acreage to a working facility

Hand Daniel twenty acres of nothing and he will show you where the house belongs, where the barn and arena go, and which way each one should face. He plans the whole property as one system before the first load of dirt moves, so every building sits right on the land and works with it.

  • Siting

    Where the house, barn, arena, pens and drive should sit, based on the lay of the land, access and how the place will be used day to day.

  • Orientation

    Which way each building faces, southeast or southwest, for sun, shade and comfort for horses and riders.

  • Flow

    Drives, turnarounds and trailer access that let a truck and gooseneck move through the property without backing up.

Panorama of a finished horse property: gravel drive sweeping past the barn, covered trailer parking and pens
One property, planned as a whole · drive, barn, trailer parking and pens
Drainage & water diversion

Water goes where he tells it.

Water causes most of the problems on a property: wet arenas, muddy barn aisles, cracked slabs and flooded garages. Getting it right is one of Daniel's specialties, and it starts in the grading.

He shapes the ground so rain moves away from what matters, through swales and ditches and off the property. He does the same on residential lots and house pads as he does on horse facilities.

House pad drainage cross-section A raised, compacted house pad with ground sloping away on both sides into swales that carry water off the lot. 6 in. fall · first 10 ft Compacted pad Swale Swale Off the lot Off the lot
House pad cross-sectionRaised pad · positive slope · swales carry water away
Freshly graded pad around a barn, sloped away from the building with the downspout piped underground
In the field

Graded away, piped underground

The ground around this barn is graded to fall away from the building, and the downspouts run into buried pipe so roof water never sits at the foundation.

House pads

Raised, compacted pads with positive fall away from the foundation, so the slab stays dry and stable.

Residential lots

Lot grading, swales and drainage ditches that move water around homes, garages and drives, not into them.

Arenas & barns

Arena bases and barn pads that shed water so the footing stays consistent and aisles stay dry after a storm.

Whole properties

Diversion, culverts and ditches planned across the acreage so runoff leaves the property the right way.

A freshly laser-graded arena pad at night, lit by a single work light
The finish
Precision you can ride on.

His finished grade is what people talk about.

Panorama of a covered arena at dusk: a tractor with a laser box grader setting the base, a CAT loader and track loader beyond
Laser box grader setting the base · covered arena at dusk
Services

What he builds

From a single outdoor pen to a full training facility, or one house pad on a residential lot.

Facility planning

Full property layout from bare land: house, barn, arena, pens and drives, sited and oriented.

Arena construction

Covered and outdoor arenas for reining, cutting, ranch riding, roping, dressage and jumping.

Drainage & water diversion

Swales, ditches, culverts and grading that move water off and away, on any size property.

House pads & lots

Residential building pads and lot grading, compacted and sloped to protect the foundation.

Laser grading

Precision grading for arena floors, building pads, pastures and roads.

Barn & building pads

Pads for barns, covered arenas and shops, ready for steel or concrete.

Footing installs & rebuilds

New footing, and renovation of arenas that ride hard, hold water or have lost their base.

Site work

Clearing, excavation, hauling, roads, round pens, alleys and wash areas.

How an arena is built

Raw ground to show footing

Excavator and dozer opening up a new site

Site & excavation

Clear, strip and move dirt until the pad sits where the plan says it should.

Freshly graded dirt beside a horse barn

Grade & compact

Laser-graded and compacted in lifts, with slope set for drainage.

CAT dozer spreading base inside a covered arena

Base under roof

Once the steel is up, the base goes in under the roof.

Ground-level view of finished, groomed footing across a covered arena at night

Footing & finish

Footing at the depth the discipline calls for, worked until it's ready to ride.

Selected projects

The finished place

Whole properties, not just arenas.

Pastures being regraded beside a pond, with a loader and track loader working in the distance
Project · Regrading & water diversion

Columbus, Texas

An existing horse property in the post oaks whose original layout needed rethinking, and a lot of earth moved to fix it. Daniel changed the level of the whole covered arena, graded a new walker pad and reworked the grade all the way around the existing Morton barn.

He then regraded the pastures for better water diversion and hydroseeded them to hold the new grade.

  • Covered arena releveled
  • Walker pad
  • Grading around barn
  • Pasture regrading
  • Water diversion
  • Hydroseeding
Before: freshly regraded red dirt beside the barn and covered arena
After: the same view with the ground finished and grass coming in
BeforeAfter
Drag to compare · same view, before and after
On the job

Recent work

Tap any photo to see it full size.

Start a project

Tell him about your land

Whether it's bare acreage, an arena that holds water, or a house pad on a residential lot, call or email Daniel with the location, what you want to build and your timeline.

Based in
Valley View, TexasWorking nationwide