Saturday with friends

On Saturday, Keith had a horseshoes tournament down in Chillicothe, Ohio, so Keith and Ruth Ann drove down and we rode with them down to Ross County, south of Columbus a ways, for the tournament.

Keith throwing a few practice "shoes"...

practice

The spectators (we weren't spectating *yet* as his part of the tournament had not begun!).

It was at the Ross County Horseshoe club.

The pins are mounted with mud at the ground level; the players turn the mud over and tamp it down before the matches begin. As compared to sand (which would be used in Arizona), the shoes won't "slide" into place, they more "stick" in the mud.

The players in Keith's class.

The video shows an example of Keith's two throws during one round -- the first one hits the top of the pin and bounces off, but the second one hooks onto the pin and drops down with a "splat" as if it was magnetized!

Keith's pitching form

I thought this one was funny... the thrown shoes were all so close to the pin that Keith and Margaret (his competitor in this match) couldn't tell who got closest...

Margaret got out a dollar bill to measure how close the shoe was to the pin! They ended up deciding it was a tie (so no one got points).

Keith's scorecard -- I didn't know anything about horseshoes before seeing this tournament, and I don't know a lot about it now -- but it turns out that just winning the matches isn't the only goal -- getting "ringers" (where the shoe is on the pin) determines the quality of your play. Keith ended the game with about 49.5% ringers for the day. His goal is to average over 50% ringers.

He was undefeated for the day so won first place in his class.

The top 3 finishers in his class.

After the tournament, we decided to stop to eat on the way home. Carl had seen a number of White Castles on the way...

... so we stopped at White Castle for supper... and Carl got his first White Castle fix in over two years!

It was a beautiful day, and I learned a little about the game of horseshoes!