Last month, Irish Olympian Jonty Evans launched a self-running crowdfunding campaign to raise £500,000 in order to keep his beloved horse, Cooley Rorkes Drift (AKA Art). Within a matter of a couple weeks, the initiative successfully secured its initial funding target thanks to nearly 3,500 supporters.
As previously reported, the campaign’s description read:
“Nations cup, Olympics, Badminton – the success that Art and I have achieved has not gone unnoticed, and there have been some huge offers made for him to be sold. His owners have a young family and I totally understand their need to accept an offer. As you can imagine, from my point of view, selling my best mate had never entered my head. It has been an horrific few months wondering if he will be sold, and praying that a solution might be found. The owners have given me time to try and raise the funds, and have agreed that I can buy him at a preferential price. We have some funding pledged, but we are short of the goal, the only solution we have left is to try a Crowdfunding campaign.”
While sharing his thoughts on raising the funds, Evans revealed to Horse And Country:
“It was a last ditch attempt as we had no other choice. It felt like madness, so it makes it even more incredible that people got behind us in this way. The support from everybody has been unreal. I never imagined it would be like this. The fact that we raise the money still hasn’t sunk in.”
Evans recently stated that an online auction will be open to the public next week, offering some prizes which he states money cannot buy, as a token of gratitude in return for supporting his funding efforts.
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