A Fun Sometimes Overly Competitive Game By Bosoxy on Mar 08, 2008 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

I grew up around a couple of popular backyard games, one of them horseshoes.

Many of you know how to play horseshoes, so to keep this review at a manageable length I will send you to two sites with instructions:

eHow - http://www.ehow.com/how_3110_play-horseshoes.html

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoes

There are many positives of this game, one being that you need very little equipment to actually play the game… just a dirt spot in the yard, a couple of metal stakes and 4 horseshoes. These items can be picked up anywhere from a yard sale to ebay to a nice sparkly new kit in your local sporting goods store.

Another positive is that it can be played with as little as two people, to as many as you would like. I think it is more fun played in teams… Children as well as adults can play, although younger children may need a shorter distance to throw as a horseshoe can be difficult to toss for distance for the younger set.

This game was always a big hit at BBQs.

The negatives are that these are actual horseshoes, so injury can happen if those playing as well as those walking around in the area are not careful. For this reason if you can play in front of a fence or block off an area so that small children or otherwise unobservant folks do not walk into the field of play that would be a good thing. (This might be a good time to use that crime scene tape that you received for Christmas from Uncle Harold. Lol!)

Another negative is that a group of men, a game of horseshoes and a keg of beer may not mix. Somehow this fun loving game can quickly turn into a seriously heated “discussion” of who won, who cheated and why Sam is a really obnoxious (fill in the blank)!

Yeah it happens… I have seen it… more than once… At first it is pretty funny.. Then, well.. Not so much.

Absent the serious slurring of the words contest, horseshoes can be really fun. ;)