The Audible racehorse has some new fans rooting him on from the Pacific Northwest. Amazon initially came across the horse after it started stealing the company’s search results. According to CNN, Amazon purchased the audio book company Audible for $300 million in 2008.
USA Today reported the partnership with the Audible race team started with a $15,000 donation to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. Audible’s senior vice president of marketing John Harrobin spoke with the Courier Journal about how the company was introduced to the race team.
“We came across Audible the horse stories in our news feed because we track all things Audible,” Harrobin told the Courier Journal. “(We) noticed that this is not us. We’re like, ‘What’s going on here?’ We noticed that actually he won this race and now he’s going to the Florida Derby and if he wins that he’s going to the Kentucky Derby. On one hand, I didn’t want my SEO search feed monopolized by something that’s not us, and on the other hand I was like, ‘This is really interesting.’”
The ownership group, including WinStar Farm, had not heard of Audible.com. The horse is named after the football term when a quarterback changes the play at the line of scrimmage (calls an audible). Once Audible clinched his spot in the Kentucky Derby, Amazon wanted to up their partnership. The challenge was the NHRSA has a rule that the horse’s outfit can only be for owners. According to the Courier Journal, Amazon had to purchase a stake in the horse, and plans to sell it back at some point.
“Then I said, ‘Well, there’s one thing: We need to actually buy the horse in order to do the sponsorship because it’s in the NHRSA guidelines you can’t put your logo on it unless you own it,’” Harrobin told the Courier Journal. “So, we’re confident in the horse. The good news is we can sell it back, and if it wins we’ll make money on it. If he loses, well we’ll lose money.”
Amazon has gone all out in their “ownership” of Audible. The company created a website for the horse, and USA Today reported it is giving away a free download of Joe Drape’s book American Pharoah if Audible ends up victorious.
On the “Go Audible” website, horse racing fans can play a trivia game where you guess whether a name is an Audible book or a racehorse. Here is Audible’s statement on their partnership with the horse.
There was never any doubt that a horse named Audible would capture our hearts. But with some mammoth sprints at a series of critical races this spring, this beautiful bay colt is drawing comparisons to another inspiring winner, American Pharoah. To celebrate our namesake’s epic journey, if Audible the racehorse wins the Kentucky Derby on May 5th, we’re giving everyone in the US a chance to listen to a free audio version of American Pharoah, which reveals the untold story behind his magnificent 2015 Triple Crown run.
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Amazon Owns Part of Audible Horse & Could Give Away Free Book