Amazon Execs To Sponsor 2018 Kentucky Derby Horse With The Same Name As Audiobook Company Audible

Evidently the executives at the Amazon-owned audiobook company Audible has never heard of horse racing before, or else they don’t do that many web searches for their company’s name.

That’s ok though, because WinStar Farms, the owner of the 3 year old thoroughbred racehorse and 2018 Kentucky Derby qualifier Audible had apparently never heard of the audiobook company by that same name either. The WinStar people claim their prized pony was named after a sneaky technique from football wherein a quarterback will give underhanded audible commands right before calling for the ball to be snapped. Sure, why not?

So, according to a story that just broke cover early on the afternoon of May 2, Amazon execs surfing the web earlier this year came upon news of a racehorse making waves in horse racing circles – a horse named Audible, just like their subsidiary, which sells the MP3 equivalent of books on tape. The Amazon crew, headed up by the company’s chief marketing officer John Harrobin, and decided Audible really could not afford to let such a serendipitous promotional opportunity get by them, so they picked up the phone and called the folks at WinStar Farms about a potential sponsorship. Audible in turn donated $15,000 to a nonprofit called the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, which provides retraining and adoption services for retired racehorses that won’t be spending their prime breeding years being pimped out for cash by their owners. Don’t knock it - if you’re a boy horse, stud work is probably a heck of a better way to make a living than running until your lungs bleed.

In exchange for this initial “donation,” Amazon got “some promotional rights,” but after Audible turned out to be a serious contender for this year’s running of the Kentucky Derby after a dominant performance at the Florida Derby at the end of March, Amazon decided to fully sponsor the steed. Though the amount of the sponsorship is not disclosed, we figure it’s got to be at least several hundred thousand if not a million bucks or more. No worries, Amazon has plenty of money to burn as it expands into previously untapped markets like owning horses for racing…and for encouraging the placing of wagers on the outcomes of those horses and races.

So Audible the horse will contest in this year’s “Run For the Roses” wearing the Audible company logo and colors on his saddle blanket, and his jockey will wear the corporate orange, yellow and purple. He actually has a good shot at winning the race, starting in Gate 5 - near the predicted front runner Justify in Gate 7. It should prove to be an interesting race between these two horses, as they are fairly evenly matched, on paper and in previous meetings across a few race tracks as well.

Harrobin went on the record as saying that sponsoring Audible the horse, who has some seriously good odds of winning the 144th Kentucky Derby (he is currently sitting on moneyline odds of +500 and +675 to win at Bovada.lv and BetOnline.ag, two of the leading legal offshore racebook sites), “could be a good story.” Evidently, the marketing boss behind an audiobooks company believes his company’s “listeners” would be enthralled with this whole shebang at least as much as they are back at the office. In addition to launching an interactive game on the Audible website wherein visitors have to guess if a name is a book title or the nom du guerre of a racing horse, Audible has a special promotion going on for books related to horses, racing, breeding, you name it.

“We thought this could be a cultural moment that we can be a part of,” Harrobin told the good folks over at CNBC.com.

Cultural moment, indeed. Audible the company has reportedly got a big party planned (complete with happy hour) with a Kentucky Derby theme in the works. Sounds like a real blast. We can only imagine the huge hats and pastel suits that will be on display at the audiobook shop on Friday afternoon before Derby Day.

If all this hullaballoo sounds like one big happy coincidence to you, well, you could be right – stranger things have certainly happened in the crazy world of horse racing, after all – but to us it smells more than a little bit like horse manure. We only say that because this is really the year for horses at the Kentucky Derby with names that are more than vaguely similar to famous people or companies. To wit, a promising horse named Gronkowski (after New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski) got an injection of some sponsorship dollars too, even though Gronkowski the horse got a widdle cold and couldn’t compete at the Kentucky Derby after all.

LegalHorseBetting.com really hopes this is not the start of a trend. What's next - a horse named after Jeff Bezos himself?