Horse Arena Lighting

When people think about horse arena lighting, they usually think about brightness. Thinking about brightness will easily lead people to thinking about power, which is expressed by wattage in lighting. In fact, power isn’t equivalent to brightness. And brightness is not the only main thing we should focus on. Uniformity is equally important.

Power ≠ Brightness

The wattage of a traditional light bulb is an indicator of its brightness, where a 60w bulb is always brighter than a 40w bulb. However, LED light is different. It denotes the power input to a bulb, rather than its light output. The principle is quite complicated. Briefly speaking, a better transformation rate will produce more brightness. Sonaray LED lights can achieve up to 150lumen/watt luminous efficacy, which is considered a high efficiency.

When wattage fails to tell the story, let’s look at lumens.

The lumen is a measure of the total quantity of visible light emitted by a source per unit of time. Standards Australia has illuminance standards for different purposes of lighting applications, from soccer pitch to horse arena, from training level to competition level, etc..

Lumens are affected by the combination of wattage, luminous efficacy, height and beam angle. Not all LED lights have a beam angle. A particular angle, such as 60˚/90˚/120˚, is realised by the lens. Sonaray’s latest optic lens technology provides more angle options, increases aiming accuracy and reduces spillage waste.

A lighting plan beforehand will give us a clear picture of what lights to use, at what height, locations, and the expected lumens. An illuminance measurement test afterwards will make sure the requirements have been met.

Uniformity is Important

Horses don’t like shadows because they can’t adjust sudden changes of light as well as we do. So brightness uniformity is very important for horses.

Brightness uniformity is a measure of how uniform the brightness is across the arena. An ideal horse arena should be free of obvious hotspots or unintended dark areas.

Uniformity is calculated as Min. Lux / Ave. Lux, which is the ratio between the brightness of the darkest spot and the overall average. The closer to one the higher uniformity is achieved, any number no less than 0.5 would be comfortable for both riders and the horses.

Glare is not Welcome

Glare is another consideration. It can be rather annoying to a horse. Where to put the fixtures, and how to tilt the lights is the science.

Simply looking for lights of higher wattage or installing more units of lights wouldn’t do the job. With Sonaray, free consultation and lighting simulation is applied to every single project. We are here to help our clients maximize brightness and uniformity, meanwhile keep the glare to the minimal. In some cases, a single type of light is applied, while in other cases, multiple wattages and beam angles are required to achieve the most desired result.