Fab’s Cowboy hangs up the racing plates after his 159th start

There are not many horses in the world who are still racing on the flat at the age of 12. To still be doing so and remaining competitive is not only a testament to Fan’s Cowboy himself but also to the care and attention that he has received throughout his entire career from Bevan Johnson and his team.

Fab Cowboy’s career stats

159 starts is quite a way to start a stat page but it is more impressive when you look and see that the horse won 54 times as well. Consistency has very much been with him since his debut in 2015, finishing second or third in a further 46 races. To make it to 100 times in the first three home is quite exceptional, picking up $442,230 on the way.

He didn’t manage better than a single runner-up in 10 metro starts but it was in the bush that he became so beloved. 40 tracks saw Fab’s Cowboy in action, saluting at 18 of them. Roma was his most successful track numerically and in terms of prize money, winning there on 10 occasions. He was 8/13 at Gladstone and 7/11 at Charleville, two tracks that he loved.  

He has saluted at least once in all nine of his racing seasons, his most successful when winning 13 times in the 2016/17 season. Both Dakota Graham and Adin Thompson rode him to victory on eight occasions with Minonette Kennedy winning seven. 

Consistency from Fab’s Cowboy

It is quite remarkable that even rising 13, Fab’s Cowboy still carried a rating of 81. The vast majority of horses who race across Australia each week could only dream of having a level that high. He was even as high as 85 in May, winning at Mount Isa from that mark during that month.

89 was the highest rating that he achieved, in the spring of 2020. It is not just the longevity of his career overall but the fact that Johnson was able to keep the horse running to such a consistent level over those years. After a win at Barcaldine on June 10 2017, Fab’s Cowboy would never dip below a rating of 79 again. 

For a horse who took seven starts to get off the mark and even when he did, he was only rated 46, it has been an incredible career. Doomben in December 2018 was the closest he came to a massive payday, runner-up in a $75K contest, beaten 0.4l.

Longreach and his final start

Shakira Bailey had never ridden Fab’s Cowboy in a race prior to Saturday, the 60th different hoop to get the leg up. There was to be no fairytale finish though as he could only finish seventh in his final start.

Sent off at odds of $10, he was never able to quicken on the rail in the straight and found himself slipping back through the field late on. Given that he was coming in off a second at Charleville, it was a slightly disappointing end to his career. After 54 wins though, the most any horse in Australia has had for a long time, he owes nobody anything. He can now ride off into the sunset to enjoy his retirement. 

It is important to celebrate the small things in life. Fab’s Cowboy was never a superstar, he never got a whiff of black type nor won any race that had any great significance. What he was though was a warrior, a battle-hardened doyen of the sport whose longevity and toughness personified him.