Small frog wins big at Sinkhole’s Garden Smash races

“I got $5 that says the big frog does not win!”

That was the wager offered by an onlooker at the frog races held on Saturday outside the Sinkhole Bar on the south side of Bloomington.

The three amphibian athletes were in a final round of competition, having won their respective races in the small, medium and large categories. Just as she had in the previous rounds, frog wrangler Ginger Mahoney set the ribbeting rivals in their “starting gate” at the center of a roped-off circle, by placing them under a white plastic container, mouth-side down.

Mahoney then lifted the container to free the frogs, which was not exactly an unleashing of spring-loaded energy. They would sit motionless for long stretches, then make a single hop, then pause again, sometimes changing direction to a path that did not lead directly out of the ring. The competition played out with loud cheers of encouragement from the crowd.

The frog races were just one of the events on Saturday at the Sinkhole, which was promoted as Garden Smash. The afternoon's lineup included free gardening activities, a hacky sack competition, music by the American Pirates, and special recipe smash burgers from Sinkhole owner McKinley Minniefield’s Slop Shop food truck. Event promoter Aaron Jones called the culinary creations “the best burger most people have ever had—with local beef, local arugula, local tomato.”

Jones told The B Square that he thought of the frog race not so much as a competition, but as a way to encourage children and adults to interact with nature. He talked about the importance of playfulness in fostering environmental stewardship.

Jones asked Mahoney to head up the gardening activities for Garden Smash, because she’s a teacher, and “she’s a bit of a hippie at heart, and … she advocated to teach most of her classes out in the forest… so I knew she’d be perfect.” Mahoney said she modeled the frog races after the Fourth of July turtle races she remembers from her childhood growing up in Hebron, Indiana.

Mahoney described the Hebron turtle races: “My siblings and I would always go find a turtle, and they have this special metal thing with … pie shaped, and they put it down in the bank parking lot, and they had a big circle.” She continued, “You put your turtle in there. And the idea was that they lifted it, and whichever turtle got out of the circle first [was the winner].”

Some of the frog names on Saturday were descriptive. Big Red was a big, red frog. Little Red was a little, red frog. Nubby was a three-legged contestant. Some names used puns on frog-related themes—like Lolly Hops.

The final race on Saturday—contested between a big frog, a medium frog, and a small frog—was won by the small frog, named Lilly, trained by Margot.

One of the frog race spectators on Friday was Chris King, who is a frequent visitor to Bloomington from St. Louis—frequent enough that he counts himself as a Sinkhole regular.

King was made $5 richer by Lilly’s victory in the final frog race. He’s the onlooker who made the bet on one of the underdog frogs.