PREPARING FOR FAREWELL FAB'S COWBOY CELEBRATION

By Graham Potter | Thursday, July 25, 2024

Compulsory retirement. That’s the immediate upcoming future for the grand old gelding Fab’s Cowboy who will have his final race and end off his twelve-year-old season at Longreach on Saturday in the appropriately named ‘Farewell Fab’s Cowboy – Birdcage Sprint Open Handicap’ over 1200m.

Running in a race named after you is a rare honour for a racehorse ... but, then again, Fab’s Cowboy is a rare kind of horse, as he has been from October 26, 2011 ... the day he was born ... when he beat the odds and survived the searing heat at the time which threatened his very existence.

Fab’s Cowboy’s honour roll is quite extraordinary as was the honour roll of the horse whose record he eclipsed.
At the top of his list of achievements is his fifty-four wins ... a number which has taken him three wins past the total of Walk Cool, who held the previous modern day-record of 51 wins achieved from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.

When he completes his career on Saturday, Fab’s Cowboy will have raced on 159 occasions as opposed to Walk Cool’s 133 starts.

Prior to Saturday’s run, Fab’s Cowboy has finished second thirty-two times, and he has finished third fourteen times ... meaning that he has finished in the first three places an amazing one hundred times (63.29 percent).

By comparison, Walk Cool finished second (twenty-three times) and third (twenty-three times) ... meaning he finished in the first three places ninety-seven times (72.93 percent).

Clearly these are two horses whose names deservedly will be entrench in county racing folklore and their results will forever stand as a credit to their respective trainers Bevan Johnson (Fab’s Cowboy) and WW Hutton (Walk Cool).

Make no mistake, I\it is a rich history out there, far away from glitter and glory of the big city lights.

But, before Fab’s Cowboy moves into retirement at Living Legends, there is the Longreach Grand Finale to come and, the result apart, you can betthat will be a Farewell Fab’s Cowboy celebration worthy of his status.