Horseshoe Found at Northfield Maintenance Facility

Around 7:20 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 31, Riley, along with her husband and five children, found the horseshoe under a pile of old fire hydrants outside the City of Northfield Maintenance building near Perkins. At least 20 other searchers were nearby when the shoe was discovered.

Riley, a lifelong Northfield resident, says her family has participated in numerous DJJD horseshoe hunts, and have come close to finding the shoe several times in past years.

This year, the hunt became a little more high-tech: Tim Freeland, event chairman for the horseshoe hunt, created laminated tags with codes on them that could be scanned on smartphones. When hunters located the correct site for each clue, a tag was waiting somewhere nearby. Hunters could then scan the codes for an additional clue. Once the first four clues were scanned, Freeland started to hint that hunters should use a map to plot the clue locations. When the fifth clue instructed hunters to map out their lines and “connect 1 to 3 and 2 to 4,” the Riley family employed the use of a draw-your-own map feature on Google Maps to locate the shoe.

Jenny Riley says when they initially plotted the points, the finished picture looked like a bow and arrow, so they headed to the archery range. After hunting with no luck, they re-plotted their points, and the lines intersected to form an “X.” The Riley family immediately headed to that point.

After the release of the fifth clue early on Friday morning, Freeland headed out to the location of the hidden shoe to watch from afar as hunters searched the area. He saw many past winners and veteran searchers in the area, but the Riley family had the right idea when they started to look near the pile of “red hot” fire hydrants.

According to Freeland, the goal of this year’s hunt was to create more activity early on in the hunt, “engaging people to actually hunt during the early clues.” To Freeland, that meant writing clues that were independently solvable (so hunters learned something new about the location each day), but also cumulative, so that searchers had to put all the clues together to be led to the right location. Freeland says the QR codes he placed around town were scanned over 600 times as Northfielders looked for the hidden horseshoe.

The Riley family wins the full $900 purse since their button was registered, and Jenny Riley says the money will be spent in two ways: first, on a trip to Hawaii to visit family later this month, and fittingly, at the DJJD celebrations.

“We have five kids,” Riley said with a laugh. “They’ll be spending some of that money on rides and food downtown.”

Jenny Riley found the Defeat of Jesse James Horseshoe around 7:20 this morning, according to horseshoe hunt event chairman Tim Freeland.

Freeland said the shoe was under a pile of “Red Hot” old fire hydrants at the City of Northfield Maintenance facility south of town. Riley wins $900 since she registered her DJJD button. Freeland said at least 20 people were in the vicinity when the horseshoe was found.

Reach reporter Kaylin Faust at 645-1115.