Ahoy, Treasure Hunters!
The Seven Paces Free Spring Treasure Hunt has concluded, and this, as promised, is the free hunt review! Let’s start off by addressing the elephant in the room… This riddle was obviously WAY TOO EASY! We received the correct solution only 30 minutes after the clues were dropped! Let’s go over the riddle and see what we could have done better.
The answer was the 1907 Horse Trough monument across from the North Side DQ.
Here is the riddle in its entirety:
Hold it Upside Down
All Around Town
Some would say we’ve had too many
Is it Sanders?
Neigh
But grab a drink!
You can lead a horse
But it has moved
Good Knight
Got it? Good! Now let’s break it down:
‘Hold it Upside Down’
This is a reference to Dairy Queen. Specifically, the practice of holding a blizzard upside down before they serve it to you. This proved to be the dead giveaway.
‘All Around Town’
Another loose reference to DQ, as there are a few of them around town, but mostly just a placeholder that rhymes with ‘Down’.
‘Some would say we’ve had too many’
This line was intended to throw people off a little bit. We were really hoping this would send people in the direction of alcohol, but the winners did end up making the connection to Blizzards… as in, we’ve had too many blizzards this past year. Nice job!
‘Is it Sanders?’
Again… another reference to an alcohol-related establishment… but if you knew anything about Sanders, you’d know it was called Sanders 1907. The number 1907 is the clue to take away from this line.
‘Neigh’
Horse.
‘But grab a drink!’
Booze or a water source for a horse? At this point, we would have expected a solution if it hadn’t happened already.
‘You can lead a horse’
We’re kind of beating a dead horse with this clue!
‘But it has moved’
I guess it moved a few times? No idea where it used to be.
‘Good Knight’
Funding for the monument was provided by the Knight foundation in 2009.
All of these clues would lead someone to the 1907 Horse Trough monument across from the North Side DQ. As already stated, the riddle was solved way too quickly. I think the first mistake was starting with a clue that pointed to DQ. There’s only one location that has any public monument near it… find that and it’s game over. The good news? There were about 4x more participants in this hunt than the previous free hunt! We have gained more insights into some changes for the next hunt, to make it more enjoyable for everyone!
In the end, an awesome family found it and they had a great time participating… so we’re really happy about that! Congratulations!
A few other things to note about the hunt: There were several people who had issues logging in to their account, so we sent the riddle out via email as a form of redundancy. For the next hunt, we’re going to move everything over to a more reliable system AND continue to administer the clues via email. We will also be closing registration at least 5 days before the hunt begins to give everyone time to confirm access.
Thanks for playing everyone! Look for updates about the next hunt!