Cotton Gutshall tapped into Horseshoe Hall of Fame

by T.L. Huffman

C. W. Carl “Cotton” Gutshall of Jamesport, was recently named to the Missouri Horseshoe Pitchers Association Hall of Fame. He’s 80 now, but Cotton still recalls the thrill of a ringer from his pre-teen days.

“We’d go out to the barn and get little pony to big draft horse shoes and pitch them behind the barn,” he says. “All the old timers will tell you the same story. That’s how they got started.”

Carl Warren grew up in Blue Ridge. The older kids called him “Cotton” because of his white hair. The nickname stuck. So did his love for horseshoes. He pitched intermural horseshoes at Gilman City High School Then he found out they held tournaments in Kansas City.

“It just kept getting bigger and bigger,” he says.

Marriage didn’t change him. “My late wife, Shirley, wasn’t crazy about horseshoes. She always knew what I’d been doing. She could hear those horseshoes going ping, ping, ping!”

Cotton says there’s no such thing as a winning technique to horseshoe pitching “I tell people to get out there and start throwing. If you like the way you’re doing it, keep doing it.”

A lot of things make horseshoes appealing. It’s inexpensive: a pair of shoes cost about $6. Anybody can play, men, women, young and old. It’s great exercise with all that walking and bending and stretching. The shoes look heavy, but they’re just a little over two pounds.

And you can play anywhere. All you need is a dirt area where you can pound two stakes in the ground about 60 foot apart. Even for serious players, it doesn’t get much more complicated.

“Jamesport Lions Club built a really fancy horseshoe court,” Cotton says. “That’s what we all like, good footing and good clay.”

Proper grip on a horseshoe is divided into two camps: flippers and rotators. Cotton says, “I like to flip the shoe. It doesn’t hurt to change. I’ve changed my grip three times.”

There are also two kinds of players: The occasional players and the die-hards.

“For a lot of people it’s just for fun,” says Cotton. “They play at picnics or family reunions or a little gathering. They don’t get involved in tournaments. Not like us fanatics.”

Cotton has been a member of Missouri Horse Shoe Pitchers Association for 30 years. For the champions, horseshoes is a game of nerve, patience and concentration.

That’s why Cotton admires world champion players like Alan Francis.

“He has natural born coordination, and has the best disposition. He’s got a concentration that wouldn’t upset him. If you have that, you’ve got something whipped.”

For amateurs, horseshoes may be a relaxing, friendly game. But contestants play to win and like to test each other’s mettle.

“Some get a little aggravated. Horseshoe pitching and golf are the best thing you can do to teach yourself to have patience. I started golfing when I was 62 and that was about 62 years too late. It’s like any sport, you’ve got to be a sport about it and control yourself. I’ve never seen horseshoe pitchers fight like they do in baseball.”

Cotton has thrown ringers up to 72% of the time in a single game. He averages about 55%.

“Practice, practice, practice,” says Cotton. “Some get better. It’s amazing. Some start and improve to be 80% pitchers. I’ve seen others who’ve pitched for 20 years and they’re still at 12%. Those are the ones who just love to do it. Some get good at it and some don’t.”

For such a humble game, horseshoes has lots of sites on the Internet.

“It exploded,” says Cotton. “Get on the net. Learn all about it.”

You can find horseshoes for sale and keep track of tournaments on the Internet. You can also follow the top-notch players, which Cotton says helps keep everybody honest.

“You don’t have to guess. A guy can’t get in a tournament as a low scorer, when he’s the high pitcher!”

Cotton had to have hip and shoulder replacement a year and a half ago. He says his pitching arm isn’t what it used to be.

“After the surgery, I tried pitching, but I can’t coordinate myself. I’ve got some recuperating to do. Old age will catch up. I’ve dropped off some today.”

But the sport has a way of rejuvenating the old timers. Once you get to be 70 years old, you can step up from 40 to 30 feet to pitch.

“Then we get really tough.”

Cotton has been promoting horseshoes for 30 years. He says that for as long as he lives he’ll help sponsor, support and supervise the Horseshoe Tournament at Jamesport which is held in May during the Step Back in Time festival every year.

He says the best thing about horseshoes, as with any sport, is the camaraderie.

“I’ve forgotten more people than I used to know. That’s the most enjoyable thing about it, getting acquainted with all the people, meeting and having a lot of friends.”