Labour Day for the Clydesdales

A-B owns more than 200 of the horses, including travelling hitches, two of which are stabled at Warm Springs Ranch. The travelling hitches cost about USD 8,000 a day, leading the brewer to implement a USD 2,000-a-day fee in April this year for Clydesdales’ appearances to help offset the increased costs of hauling, feeding and caring for the horses, it was reported.

The Budweiser Clydesdales were first introduced on 7 April 1933 to celebrate the repeal of Prohibition. August Busch Jr. and Adolphus Busch III presented a hitch of horses to their father to celebrate the day.

The first television advertisement featuring the Budweiser Clydesdales was aired in 1956. The commercials featuring the horses have been so popular, fans protested loudly against A-B’s decision to not include them during this year’s Super Bowl. An earlier version of the Clydesdales commercial allegedly didn’t fare well in consumer testing and failed to make the cut. But A-B then produced a new commercial and dropped other spots to put the Clydesdales back in the advertising line-up for the big game.

TNS Media Intelligence, a market research outfit, said in January 2010 that a 30-second commercial during Super Bowl on CBS was selling for between USD 2.5 million and USD 2.8 million, based on reports from advertisers and media buyers. In 2009, a 30-second ad averaged USD 3 million on NBC - a record, according to TNS.

No wonder, A-B had to get the pitch right.

The Clydesdales are such a big deal for A-B that the USD 52 billion takeover agreement in 2008 between InBev in Belgium and Anheuser-Busch specifically named the horses as part of the merged company.

Group tours at the breeding farm are offered daily between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.