Nevertheless whether you are a consumer of the Anheuser-Busch line of beverages or not you are aware that the company sponsors the famed Clydesdale hitches. With very little research I found that the eight-horse Clydesdale team is still a major draw in the business. Today, Anheuser-Busch owns approximately 250 Clydesdales.

That’s all fine and good but what about the donkey? If you have to ask, “What donkey?” you haven’t been following the Budweiser Clydesdale advertising, particularly the ads done for the Super Bowl. The ad featuring the dear little dusty donkey was a particular favorite of many but it was a one of. Face it; the donkey will never have his own show.

So what do you do with a leftover donkey after the Super Bowl? If you are Anheuser-Busch, you find a good home for it. And that is where this story commences.

Dave Butts whose farm is near Libertytown, got a phone call one day. A voice that he did not recognize asked him if he would like to become the new owner of the Budweiser donkey from the commercials.

Dave figured this was a prank and said, “Sure. Tell him to bring me a beer.”

No, the man insisted this was not a prank call.

Dave replied, “Well, in that case tell him to bring me a six-pack.”

It took a while but Dave was finally assured that a representative of the Anheuser-Busch corporation was on the phone and that he had been chosen as a person to whom a dusty little once-famous donkey could be entrusted for the approximately 30-plus years that it might still have in it. Donkeys live long, long lives.

In answer to the question of what he needed to do to get the donkey, the representative said that the donkey would be delivered to him and a date and time was set for its arrival.

Dave was waiting for what he assumed would be a pickup truck and trailer to pull in his farm road. Instead one of the huge Budweiser Clydesdale vans came chugging down the driveway. Figuring he was about to see some of the famed horses Dave hustled over to the van.

As the driver stepped down Dave asked, “What all do you have in the van?”

The driver looked at him. Laconically, he replied, “Donkey.”

And that was how the Budweiser donkey arrived in Libertytown, all the way from Florida, all alone in the back of a 12-horse Budweiser emblazoned tractor trailer.

The driver told Dave this much, “His name’s Bo and he eats cheese crackers.”

Dave told the driver, “Well, on this farm his name is Bud and, if there are any cheese crackers in my barn, I’m going to eat them.”

Dave allows that the donkey fits right in with the two ponies and the other donkey in their paddock. However he says, “My other donkey has to sort of warm up to bray, kind of like a bagpipe. This one just stands there and when he opens his mouth windows rattle all over the farm!”

In donkeys just as in everything else these days there is no such thing as a completely free lunch.

Hope Holland is the Times’ equestrian writer. Her column appears every Sunday. Reach her at

410-857-7896 or sports@carrollcountytimes.com.