Organizers hope world horseshoe tournament draws 1,500 pitchers
Two-week event to take place at Gage Park and Expocentre in 2015
A few years ago Topeka came up five votes short of landing the World Horseshoe Pitching Championships.
This year the vote was even closer, with Topeka landing the 2015 event, which organizers hope will draw 1,500 pitchers, by a single vote.
“We bid in 2007 and that's the year we missed by five votes,” said Melvin Jeardoe, regional director of the Kansas Horseshoe Pitchers Association. “We looked at it again over the last couple of years and we decided to go for 2015 mainly because this year's tournament was in Utah, which is in the western United States, and next year's is in New York, which is in the east.
“We thought we could get more people if we bring it back to the central United States. We're going to have, I could guess, between 1,500 and 2,000 participants.”
Visit Topeka Inc., which announced the successful bid at a Monday news conference, presented the bid to land the world event along with the Topeka Horseshoe Association, the Kansas Expocentre and the Kansas Horseshoe Pitching Association.
The 2015 event will be held July 13-25 with between 50 and 75 indoor courts being set up at the Expocentre's Landon Arena and Exhibition Hall. The 18 horseshoe pits at Gage Park will be used as practice courts.
The event is expected to bring in an estimated economic impact of $2 million to Topeka hotels, restaurants and businesses.
Delegates from the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association chose Topeka over Charleston, W.V., and Wichita Falls, Texas. Jeardoe said Topeka edged Charleston for the 2015 bid by one vote.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for us as we continue to showcase our ability to host high profile sporting events in the capital city,” said Jeffrey Alderman, director of sales for Visit Topeka Inc. “The NHPA is a highly respected organization, and it's an outstanding achievement to be selected, given the stature of the other bidding cities.”
The world tournament runs for two weeks and draws competitors from across the United States, Canada and several other countries.
“I think it was a collaboration between H.R. (Cook, general manager of the Kansas Expocentre) and Visit Topeka to get this date figured out, and we kind of liked this date because it’s before school starts,” Jeardoe said. “Some of the other proposals were later and conflicted with school starting.
“This date really worked well for everybody.”
Cook said the Expocentre is ready for the challenge of getting things ready for the world event.
“They asked for a minimum of 50 (courts), and I think we can get about 75 pits in there,” Cook said. “It will be one of the biggest tournaments. We'll go in about a week early and build all the pits and put up all the trailers. It’s not just a two-week tournament. It’s about a three- or four-week preparation time.
“It’s going to be something completely different to anything we’ve done before, and we like doing that.”
The first World Horseshoe Tournament was held in Bronson, Kan., in 1910. The 2015 event will be the second held in Kansas.