How To Make A Horseshoe Pit

Have you ever wanted to make a horseshoe pit in your backyard? It is a great game and very fun to play with your family, though it’s hard to find space for it sometimes. Fortunately, it is not difficult at all to make a horseshoe pit at your place. You only need some tools and a frame for the pit. You are to fill it with sand, to build the back wall and to draw the foul lines.

Steps

1. Gather the materials.

2. Find the place for your horseshoe pit. If you are going to build one pit make sure you leave enough space for the throw (the rules require about 8 or 11 m from the pile, but you can choose the distance convenient for you). If you build two pits, you’ll need to leave 14.5 m between them (including 0.6 m of space behind each pit). The width should be 1.8 m.

3. Build the boxes. Take two planks 0.9 m long, two planks 1.2 m long and build a rectangle frame. Fasten the planks in the corners with the screws. Do the same to build the second frame and make the two boxes identical.

4. Put the boxes where they should be. The front sides (the ones that are shorter) of the frames should be 11 m far from each other.

5. Mark the ground outside of each box with flour, chalk or spray paint to see where to dig. Put the box aside.

6. Dig the pits for the boxes. Dig the pits so that the frame’s top edge was a bit lower than the grass around it. Make the pits scyphiform in order to keep the sand inside.

7. Place the frames inside the pits.

8. Place a peg in each box 0.9 m from the front side (provided the boxes face each other).

9. Cover the bottom of each box with some landscape covering material. The sand will not go down, though it is not necessary.

10. Fill the boxes with sand. You can use sand, soil or blue clay (that you will have to keep wet). Sand and clay are preferred for the horseshoe pit because a metal horseshoe would slide it.

11. Build the back walls (not necessary). It won’t let the horseshoes fly over the box and will prevent the sand, soil or clay from spilling. To build one wall you’ll need three planks 0.9 m each with the section 38 mm x 140 mm. Fasten them from the back side with two bars 0.6 m each with the section 5x5 cm. Dig the ends of the bars in the ground.

12. Mark the foul lines (not necessary). Mark the foul lines using the same materials you marked the ground for digging.