Alan Francis is a 15-time world champion in horseshoes.

DEFIANCE, Ohio — From behind a neat, ranch-style house on Melody Lane came the clinking rhythm of iron striking iron.

Alan Francis stood more than a dozen long-legged strides from an inch-thick stake drilled deep into tacky clay. Perhaps the most dominant athlete in any sport in the country, Francis lifted his right arm, swung it behind him and forward again.

He launched a horseshoe toward the target 40 feet away. It weighed a little more than 21⁄2 pounds and spun slowly, sideways. It rose and fell in an arc until its narrow open end, 31⁄2 inches across, caught the stake with percussive perfection.

Clink.

Francis, satisfied but expressionless, pitched another.

Clank.

“Those are the sounds you want,” he said, smiling.

Built narrow like a stake, with a mustache and a crew cut, Francis is widely considered the best horseshoe pitcher in history. He has won 15 world titles, including the past seven. He hopes to extend his streak in early August at the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association world tournament in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

But the number that most impresses those whom Francis, 40, routinely beats or who gather to watch is the key stat in horseshoes: ringer percentage.

Get a ringer 70 percent of the time, and you are in a shrinking class of world-class pitchers. Get one 80 percent of the time, and you are probably in the top two.

Get one 90 percent of the time, and you are Alan Francis.

“Of all the guys that have pitched this game, he’s the best,” said Gerald Bernard, a veteran of a summer tournament circuit made up almost entirely of people with no hope of beating Francis. “No doubt.”

In the championship game of last year’s world tournament, which had more than 1,300 participants, Francis fell far behind Vermont’s Brian Simmons, a two-time world champion and Francis’ only viable rival. Francis pitched ringers on 25 of his final 26 shoes to win what some call the greatest match in the sport’s history.

Francis finished the 19-game tournament with ringers on 917 of 1,016 pitches, a record 90.26 percent.

Francis began competing when he was 9 and won the first of four consecutive junior (under 18) world titles when he was 12. He won the men’s world championship for the first time in 1989, at 19. He has won 14 of the past 17.

“I’ve worked hard, honing that skill,” he said. “At the same time, it’s a gift. I think I was given the ability to do it.”

Women, children and seniors pitch from 30 feet, not 40, and usually flip shoes end over end. But a well-thrown flipped shoe can bounce off the stake, which is why most top men’s players spin their horseshoes horizontally. The shoes typically rotate clockwise, one and a quarter or one and three-quarters times, virtually locking themselves onto the stake.

As a boy, Francis heaved horseshoes with a slow counterclockwise rotation. His “three-quarter reverse” remains a trademark.

“I’d say there may be 1 percent or less that throw a three-quarter reverse,” Francis said. “But that’s the style that works for me, and that’s the style I’ve tried to perfect.”

Displaying little effort, Francis tosses each shoe as he steps with his left foot. The horseshoe’s arc reaches only 8 feet. (“More air, more error,” said Simmons, who also has a flat shot.)

Francis’ manner is equally consistent. He tosses his two horseshoes, steps aside to watch his opponent, and strides to the other end to determine the points. Even his wife struggles to read his blank expression.

“I’m not real smart,” Francis said with typical self-deprecation. “But I can focus on things that are in front of me.”