Arena Lights - on the cheap
 
This year, when daylight savings time changed for the winter, I decided that I would not ride in the dark for another year.
First, an electrician came out and discussed lights on electric company poles, and adding another meter and overhead and underground lines. The Electric Company said no to lights on their poles, so then I started looking at poles being brought out and installed.
After two weeks of riding by car headlights, I was willing to do almost anything.
Then I had an idea, and enlisted my father's help. He expanded on the idea, and we did the install in one day on the weekend. Now that we've done it, we have plans to improve and possibly make permanent what we thought would work as temporary lighting.
This was done with no digging, and the poles can be lowered fairly easily. T posts did have to be pounded in, but that was much easier than digging and getting really long poles, so that they would still be tall enough after being sunk in the ground.
What I bought: 250 ft of outdoor 12 gauge wire
2 - 16 ft 4X4 posts
Outdoor electric light switch and box
Heavy duty plug
6 - 7" water pipe clamps
Box of wire connectors for 12 gauge
What I had: 6 - Heavy duty T Posts
2 - 300 watt Halogen lights
Extension Cord
Electric fence on T posts
An update on improvements made in the past couple of years. We bought 10' PVC pipe and cut it in 1/2 to put over all the t-posts. We also bought caps to go over the top and added one more strand of tape for appearances (horses have never gotten out of the 2 strand).
The electric line that is run out to the two light posts was put into pvc conduit and can be seen in this picture, but is now buried about 6" deep (used an electric edger to create the small trench).
The little building at the end of the fence houses the electric fence charger.
We are also considering running another electric line out into the pasture to have one more light pointing at the far end of the arena.
I don't actually have an arena, but this is the short end of a small dressage sized area that I have marked off as an arena.
 
The lights were on the house, but we never used them because they were too bright. I think I saw them at Home Depot for around $7 each.
What Father did, was put two more T posts in the ground by an existing T post on the fence line. We put a little 4X4 as a form while the T posts were being put in. Each 16 ft 4X4 is held tightly between three T posts.
 
We used the clamps around the T posts and the 4X4s at 3 levels to hold it all in place. The nice thing, is that the 4X4 isn't in the ground. If we take off the clamps, we can lower the 4X4 to replace bulbs, or reposition the lights.
We ran the outdoor wire along the fence line at the height of one of the electric tape strands (we did this between the two light poles, also). The horses won't touch it. The wire goes to the end of the fence line. At that point, we put a heavy duty plug, and run an extension cord from the house to the plug.

If we did it over again, we would make sure that the wire running from the light to the bottom of the pole was run on the side of the pole that didn't have a T post beside it. I also am planning to put the wire running along the fence in 1/2" PVC pipe, so it will look better and have a little more protection. Eventually, we will also dig a trench and bury cable from the end of the fence to the house, so it will be hard wired to electricity.