Peter Kinores winds up, steps forward and pitches.

Clang.

The 74-year-old's horseshoe connects with a metal pin 40 feet away, a perfect ringer.

Kinores and his fellow members of the O'ahu Horseshoe Pitchers Association are looking to expand their game and break a few stereotypes along the way.

"We getting old already," group president Al Edsman, 65, said with a laugh. "Somebody has to fill in the ranks."

"We cannot bowl, cannot play baseball, basketball ... so now we play horseshoes," Kinores said. The 25-member group gathers every Thursday at Barbers Point.

To clarify, the game is for all ages — it's just been hard to find fresh faces in a sport that has a stigma of being just for elders.

The pitchers guess that their youngest member is 60.

But the group is well-organized, has a new facility built in January of this year and hopes to lure some of the young crowd there. About a dozen different rows of pins are lined up end to end with official distances marked in a gravel-and-concrete fenced area.

OHPA wants to double its member count next year. On Jan. 14, it will hold a membership drive, where each current member is charged to bring in a new person. There are even plans to start a junior division for kids, as well singles and doubles play.

Horseshoe pitching isn't part of physical education at schools, and you probably won't see anyone playing a pick-up game anytime soon, but Edsman says it's great for just kicking back and hanging with friends.

"It's family-oriented," Kinores said.

Most members are from Leeward O'ahu, but Edsman, who lives in East Honolulu, is dedicated enough to make the commute to play a few solid rounds each week. He's pitched since 1987 when a friend introduced him to it.

The pitching technique can be likened to bowling. Take a few steps up to the marked line at one pin, hold the shoe behind your body and release underhanded into the air in one swift motion. The goal is to get the horseshoe to circle the metal pin nailed into the ground on the other end (called a ringer).

At 40 feet away, the task is easier said than done. Beginners usually go short, long, or to either side of the target as they try to discover the best point with arm extended to release the shoe and the right amount of force to use.

In other words, it's easy to pitch a horseshoe, but difficult to pitch one accurately.

Much like sinking a jump shot in basketball or throwing a strike in baseball, tossing a ringer is something horseshoe pitchers want to do every time they step up to the line. Every pitcher will go through hot streaks and slumps, but the more one practices, the more consistent their results will be.

The club meets in the early afternoon and after work to relax and pitch a few games before sundown. While some practice their pitching, others watch from the shade and benches around the fenced area, talking story.

OHPA keeps a detailed list of every member's ringer percentage (number of times they successfully got the shoe around the pin) at each sanctioned tournament. The results then are posted on the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association Web site.

"Once you learn the sport of horseshoes, and start improving, you want to go, go, go," said Edsman, of Kuli'ou'ou Valley. "You don't want to stop because that's how most of the guys did these things." He gestured to the posted ringer percentages list on the club's bulletin board. "Their scores became higher."

The best ringer numbers of OHPA members are about 58 percent.

While it's not a physically demanding sport — unless one chucks horseshoes for hours on end — it's a decent workout to toss a pair of shoes, walk across to the far pin, gather them from the ground, and toss back to the other pin.

The National Horseshoe Pitchers Association limits the weight of the specificially manufactured horseshoe to 2 pounds, 10 ounces. There is no minimum.

Three points are awarded for a ringer, and one point if the horseshoe is within six inches of the pin. Competition is usually head-to-head; for casual games, the club plays first person to 30 points wins. A typical game can last between 20 and 30 minutes.

In tournament play on Saturdays, players move back and forth 15 to 20 times for a total of 30 or 40 shoes tossed in a typical game. They usually play round-robin tournaments with a cash prize for the top three finishers.

Many of the club's members also pitch after work to blow off steam.

"If you want to relieve yourself from stress, then do it," Edsman said. " 'Cause you can bang the pins all you want and they still gonna stay there."

If local horseshoe pitchers gets good enough, they can try their hand at the national and world levels — but they must carry a "solid (ringer percentage) average" in at least four sanctioned OHPA tournaments to qualify, Edsman said.

Kinores, one of the better pitchers in the OHPA, competed in the World Horseshoe Pitching Tournament in July at Bakersfield, Calif. He was fourth of 16 competitors in his age bracket in the five-day event.

"There were guys from all regions, from all over the world," said Kinores, of Pearl City. "And they're really good players. It was wonderful competing against them."

For the best of the best, there also are specialized ways to pitch.

"Most experts prefer to throw a 'turning shoe'," said member Chris Koanui, a retired Hawaiian Tel employee. That's a side-grip on the "U," instead of holding it directly in the center — the horseshoe pitching equivalent of putting a curve on a bowling ball.

Kinores was the only person from the state to enter the tournament — and he's only been pitching for a few years.

Expert horseshoe pitchers often spend a week in advance of big games tossing 1,000 horseshoes to prepare themselves.