Recent ringers place Bloomfield’s Mary Matthews eighth in Horseshoe Canada’s top 100 women

Bloomfield’s Mary Matthews is ‘ringing’ in more national and provincial horseshoe championship honours.

She is now eighth in Horseshoe Canada’s top 100 women.

Matthews, who plays out of the First Nations Horseshoe Club in Tyendinaga, won the Ontario Provincial Single Championship Aug. 27-28,
hosted at the Belleville Horseshoe Club. The event saw 69 men and women compete. She brought home $260 for the win.

“The Ontario singles played 40 shoes, or 40 points, whichever comes first,” noted Matthews, who also won this event in 2018. She adds she went in hitting ringers 47.7 per cent of the time, and left hitting them 49.2 per cent.

Earlier in the month she won the women’s B Class at the Canadian Horseshoe Championship in High Prairie Alberta, Aug. 17-20. There she notes she went in at 47.7 percent for ringers, and came out with 52.5 per cent – and $740.

“It’s not unusual for competitors to pitch to the ringer 75 per cent of the time. I saw that at the Canadians with the A1 Class player.

At those games, there were 113 players, including 14 Ontario men and women, of which seven came home with wins.

Matthews also won the Ontario Double contest this year with Melissa Brant.

She started playing horseshoes in 2002 as a social fun with friends and soon joined sanctioned competitive events.

“Everything just took off from there,” she laughs.