Kentucky Pinhooker Turns to Stock Exchange

A Louisville pinhooker has turned to the stock exchange to grow his business. Jim Tilton, a securities broker with experience in investment banking, has taken his Thoroughbred Interests pinhooking business public this week. The company has been approved for trading on the Over the Counter Bulletin Board under the ticker symbol TBIN and is now available at about 15 cents per share.

Tilton is Thoroughbred Interests' chief executive officer and holds 93% of the company's stock. He ventured into pinhooking and racing in 1997 and formed the company in 1999. Other investors in the business are the Augustine Fund, a limited partnership in Chicago that loaned Tilton $300,000 and secured the loan with stock, and Andrew Dyer of Greenville, S.C.

"I'm basically leveraging my background and past business contacts," Tilton said. "I wanted to use the company as a source of capital to increase my assets and be a bigger player in the pinhooking industry."

While his pinhooking experience is limited, Tilton said he has put together a network of industry veterans who will help him buy weanlings to be resold as yearlings and yearlings to be resold as 2-year-olds in training.

The company already owns 30 horses and has eight in training with Scott Lake, Steve Asmussen and Jerry Hollendorfer. Tilton said the focus of the business is pinhooking and that the horses in training will raced and sold.

Thoroughbred Interests has about $1.4 million worth of weanlings and yearlings. He has 12 yearlings and six weanlings boarded at Wavertree Stables near Ocala, Fla., and two weanlings at Russell Springs Farm in Kentucky. Tilton expects to resell the horses for about $3 million next year.