Local favorites win at the 3rd Annual Chesapeake Open Horseshoe Tournament
held July 18,19 and 20 at City Park. David Turner from Chesapeake won the National Horseshoe Pitchers sanctioned event title, A Class 1st Place, Saturday. Kenny Equils, also from Chesapeake, won the Open Public Championship title on Sunday. 

The Sunday championship rounds pitted the first place Open Public winners against each other in a show-down pitchoff. Kenny’s opponents in the Championship rounds were Larry Fanton and Tom Stewart, both from Chesapeake. The title came down to one game - Kenny against Larry. In that game, Kenny started out pitching 70%, throwing 7 ringers out of 10 shoes, taking the lead 15-0. Losing his momentum for a short while, Kenny finished the game 21-5, with an impressive 38% ringers overall in that final game. 

In the Saturday sanctioned play classes, husband & wife, Janet & Talmage Dunn, Virginia Beach, both won their divisions, with Janet taking 1st place in F class, with a record of 5 wins, 0 losses, 17.74% overall for the day, and Talmage taking 1st place in C class, 5-1, with 35.5%.

Ken Robinson, Richmond, took the Division title for Class E, finishing the day with a 6 win, 1 loss record. His only loss of the day was in a very tight match against Scott Fencil, Chesapeake. Scott won that game 26-21 in the second round.

D Class winner TC Stewart, from Chesapeake, was thrilled with the outcome of the day. He finished up with a 7 win, 0 loss record for the day, pitching an overall 8.75% above his entering percentage.   

C Class winner Talmage Dunn was tied at the end of scheduled play against Kirk Adams, Chesapeake, and took the 1st place title by pitching 19 ringers out of 50 shoes, for a 38% game total. His only loss of the day was against Kirk during the scheduled rounds of play. Kirk came in 2nd place, finishing 4-2, with 34%. 

The B class pitchers ended up in a three-way tie for first place. Pat Snelgrove, Stuarts Draft vied for the title against Mark Bunch, Lynchburg and Marvin Chessons, Chesapeake.  Mark ended up taking the title with 5 wins, 1 loss, pitching 35% for the day.

In the 4th round of A class, it only took only 28 shoes for Ken Henson, Virgina Beach to beat Jerry Colyer, Alberta, 40 - 0. The 11 ringers that Jerry threw were no match for Ken’s 24 ringers out of 28 shoes – 85.7% - only 4 ringers short of a perfect game! 

After the final round of scheduled of play, Ken was faced with a 3 way tie for 1st place. He pitched off against David Turner, Chesapeake and Wayne Sturtz, from Winchester. Wayne was the first loss of the match, against David, giving him third place for the division. As Ken & David started to pitch for the top place of the entire event, David remarked that “this was the most nervous I’ve ever been while pitching.” Spectators were line up along the courts watching their every move. 

But David’s strategy for focusing on the pin, ignoring the distractions paid off. Although he started off slowly, with Ken in the lead, David brought his score up and tied 26-26 at 36 shoes. It took him another 18 shoes for him to finish the game, 41-30. His overall percentage for the day was 47% ringers. 

Award ceremonies closed out each of the three days, and Kevin Snelgrove, Regional Director for the Virginia Horseshoe Pitchers Association, thanked the City of Chesapeake and the Parks & Recreation Department for their continued support of this annual event.  “With the addition of excellent quality clay this year, I look forward to working with the City and the Chesapeake Horseshoe Club for next year’s event. We hope to be able to attract some of the top notch East Coast pitchers next year, these courts are developing into some of the best in the State.”