Sportswriter Geoffery Gray and the website True.Ink are pushing forward with a very unique crowdfunding experiment that has already surpassed its initial $35,000 goal. Gray wanted to engage readers and bring them together, and the way he decided to go about doing that was to start a crowdfunding campaign to buy a thoroughbred racehorse.
The Indiegogo page for True Stables already has more than 330 backers who have pooled in more than $37,000, and now the team is ready to buy a horse that will try to be only the second to win the Triple Crown in the last 38 years.
With the money donated, Gray and True.Ink are promising backers that they will get to name the horse, pick a trainer, breeder, and eventually the horse itself, meet and feed the horse, and attend parties on race day. The $37,000 isn’t nearly enough to buy the horse, obviously, but it will cover the exercise, training, and stable fees for one year.
Now that the first gate is clear, Gray’s eventual goal is to raise $100,000, which should be enough to get them a horse, maybe even one that could compete in the Kentucky Derby.
“Racehorses are so, so fantastically expensive and extraordinarily fragile,” Gray said. “…A reason why horse owners get into trouble is that they spend all this money buying a horse, but then they don’t have the money to keep it secure…This allows everybody to have the experience of being a horse owner and to really engage on a story from the inside and not having to be told through the filter of a report.”
Let’s just hope the funders don’t have too much fun with naming that horse, or else we might have another Boaty McBoatFace on our hands.
(Via Daily Dot)
