Playing horse shoe. Does the game still exist?

Barbara: I cannot recall the last time I saw someone playing Horseshoe's. Here in middle GA all the young folks play Cornhole instead.

    We play horse shoes when our family gets together for holiday weekends.  It goes back for generations.  What is interesting...  the youngsters think it is for "the old guys", but once you teach the 20-somethings how to toss the shoes, they get obsessed with it! 

I love the game and have two sets. Horshoes is a must have item at family reunions, summer gatherings, and the 4th of July.

I enjoy a good game of horseshoes - but the moern version - corn hole has become more popular.

Barbara, I think now they just throw horses---the heck with the shoes

The game of horseshoes was popular at Spring Park when I was growing up in Searcy Town. It's true it was a game mostly for seniors (retired) or out of work to pass the time.  Youngsters did play it some but it was more for grownups.

Worn horseshoes were available free from the livery stable. Two lengths of old iron pipe were all that was necessary to set up a game. After a while, there would be a deep pit around the stakes from horseshoes digging up the soil.

There were many throwing techniques to get the horseshoe to land with the open end embracing the stake. There was the straight throw with little rotation and the end over end rotation throw or the side to side rotation. All required throwing them in a straight line toward the stake. Scoring was done with ringers, leaners and closest. Remember the saying  "Close only counts in horseshoes"?

Nowadays, my sport is throwing hicker nuts in knot holes in trees from my deck.

Of course there was pitching pennies. This was a gambling game where the winner kept all the loser's pennies. Pennies were tossed toward a wall and the penny closest to the wall was the winner. Usually the penny had to hit the wall and bounce off.

I don't remember playing the washer toss game Harold mentioned. I suspect washers were harder to come by.

Barbara, I have been playing horseshoes on and off since I was a little kid. At a campsite this summer during our vacation they had a horseshoe pit, and my son and I played till it got dark. Our friends have a horse property, and any time we go there, we all end up playing a round or two of horseshoes. My dad also really enjoys the game.