Meet Alan Francis, the best horseshoe pitcher in the world.
Allow us to introduce you to the world champion of Horseshoe Pitching. Wait, scratch that. The fifteen-time world champion of Horseshoe Pitching. Horseshoe pitching championships? Who knew?
Alan Francis got started in the game when he was 5. (His dad put him up to it.) Today, he’s the master of hurling two-and-a-half-pound horseshoes at an iron stake forty feet away. Over the past 17 years, he’s won 14 world championships.
“I let my ringers do the talking,” he says in a slick little audio slide show by the New York Times. “It’s a good, clean family sport, and I enjoy it that way.”
We had no idea anyone actually played this sport more seriously than a family get-together in the Midwest, but it turns out there’s a national association, with horseshoe-pitching uniforms and everything. There’s even an official way of describing the mechanics of Francis’ throw: a reverse three-quarter turn.
“I’ve been on a very good roll the last few years and pitching better than I ever probably thought I would,” he told the NYT. If he keeps it up, he can expect to win about $4,000 at each championship.
Still, we suppose there are stranger things than national horseshoe pitching.
—Seth Putnam
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