When Louis Brock started pitching horseshoes over forty years ago, he was one of the young guys.  “I was eighteen and they were fifty,” Brock laughs, talking about some of his early horseshoe friends from the Pleasantview area.  In the time since then, many of the individuals from those days have since passed on and the popularity of horseshoes has been somewhat supplanted by cornhole and pickleball.  Not for
Brock, though.

He recently came in 2nd in a tournament in Washington Terrace, Utah with a 4-1 showing and a 17 percent ringer rate.  He earned another 2nd place at tournament at Pocatello’s Ross Park, with 15 percent ringers.

“I used to be up around fifty percent ringers, but now I’m around fifteen most of the time,” Brock says.  

While the overall prevalence of horseshoes as a competitive game and a reliable backyard sport isn’t what it was decades ago, among those who play it it’s as big as it ever has been.  In fact, while this year’s National Horseshoe Pitchers Association World Tournament will be held in Tri-Cities, Washington, next year’s premier event will take place even closer to home, just down the road in Salt Lake City.

Although the technology of protecting horse’s against injury through the use of “shoes” dates to at least the second century B.C. game of “quoits” played by ancient Greeks, there is scattered evidence of discarded horseshoes having been used for recreation in many places where cavalry was in abundance.  Unsurprisingly, tales of shoe pitching follow along with military campaigns, just as the collection of discarded shoes tended to follow the military procession.  The NHPA points to historical mentions of the game in wars through the American Revolutionary War, but dates the true competitive form of the sport to Union camps during the Civil War.  The first recorded “World Tournament” was held in Bronson, Kansas in 1910, and from there the sport spread and the rules became established.  

There have been attempts to get horseshoe pitching into the Olympics as a competition sport (rather than an exhibition) for many decades, but they have been hampered by the rule that a qualifying Olympic sport must show at least 17 counties with active groups involved in the sport.  At present, the number is less than 10.  

Nonetheless, pitching has a special spot in the heart of Americans, where the sport was officialized, and Westerners, where the sport is still commonly played.  The locations of the World Tournament tend to bear this out, and a Sunday barbeque with country relatives might add evidence to the argument. 

The Enterprise wishes Brock well on his trip to Salt Lake next year, and his continued firekeeping for an iconic sport.