[thinker&planner]

Our first horseshoe prototype shot about 5 feet, due to it's terribly made curve. If you are going to manufacture your curve, take your time and do it right.

If you plan to use a pneumatic wheel (like we did), plan for at least a 1/2" of expansion at 5000rpm. We ended up only being able to spin ours at 1/2 speed because of this phenomenon.

We used a 3/16" piece of aluminum (I know it wasn't 6061, I believe it was 6063) and asked a local metal fabrication shop to roll it into the right shape.
The first place that we asked to do it charged us $50, and they did it wrong, even though we left them a (dimensioned) drawing. From a phone call that we had immediately after we picked it up "Well, I didn't know what a radius was..." I think that they refunded us for the "labor", but they still ate our metal (6061). The second place told us that we needed a different alloy, and they gave it to us, in addition to rolling it.

If you have access to a welder, weld strips/tabs to the back, but be careful not to warp the curve.

Good Luck!