Danny hasn't had much luck on the track over the years but is reportedly in the running for a very special title — the oldest living thoroughbred in Australia.
While his accolades as the racehorse Phantom Rock were limited to a third-place finish and $200, his loving owner Coleen Robertson still thinks he is a winner after Danny this year celebrated his 40th birthday.
Ms Robertson and Racing Queensland believe Danny is the oldest living thoroughbred in the country.
Vets say older horses are becoming more common as they move from being working animals to family pets.
'He's always here'
Ms Robertson said over the years, Danny had become her "everything" and her greatest confidant.
"There's a lot of times I'll come down here and just go, 'Danny, we need to have a chat', but it might be about my son, husband, anything," she said.
She said he was always there.
"He hasn't got a wicked bone in his body," she said.
"He never bucks, he never bites, and he's got such a good nature."
Danny's tongue hangs where his teeth used to be.
"He doesn't nicker as much when I come in because I don't think he can," Ms Robertson said.
"He can see me, but I think he's actually getting a little bit blind and a little bit deaf."
Ms Robertson said Danny's missing teeth were a result of "wind-sucking" and cribbing, which was common among bored racehorses kept in the stables.
"They grab on to the lower part of the stable door and clench it with their teeth really hard, and it strains the muscles in their neck," she said.
Long in the tooth
Sunshine Coast equine vet Tony Doherty said reaching 40 was an achievement, but older horses were increasingly spending years out to pasture.
"When I was newly graduated, if somebody told me that there was a horse in the mid-20s, I'd probably go and have a quick look at it just curiosity to see it," Dr Doherty said.
"Nowadays, we have quite a few clients that have horses well into their … mid-30s."
Dr Doherty said the oldest thoroughbred he had seen with documentation was 43 in 2009.
But he said estimating a horse's age become more difficult once it passed 20.
"After that, hence the expression getting long in the tooth, the teeth tend to elongate," he said.
Dr Doherty said horses were living longer because more of them were transitioning from their working lives into being pets.
He said advances in medicine and nutrition had also helped.
"The better understanding of nutrition and general welfare, better care of teeth, their feet, routine worming and just general preventative care, routine vaccinations have all improved the longevity of horses," he said.
"Horses now have become a lot more integral part of the family and a pet, resulting in better care, as opposed to being a beast or burden or a working animal."
The cost of love
Ms Roberston said she had spent up to $35,000 in vet bills to keep the thoroughbred alive.
She said Danny almost didn't make it to the milestone a number of times, including recently when he lost "a quarter" of his body weight during the floods and torrential weather in south-east Queensland.
"It was really scary," she said.
She said he spent a lot of time lying down and didn't eat much.
"I was trying to prepare myself for it then, and then, by some miracle, he pulled through again," she said.
'Without Coleen he wouldn't be alive'
Danny now grazes in his paddock on the Sunshine Coast, where stablehand Christa Elliot has worked for 30 years.
She said people were amazed by his existence.
"People just don't believe a horse can be 40 years old, and it amazes us too as horse owners because we've never come across a horse that's been that age and still going strong," she said.
"Without Coleen, he wouldn't be alive today.
"She's an absolute credit as a horse owner to look after him the way she's done through thick and thin, and he just loves her to bits."
The average life span of a horse is 25 to 30 years old, according to the Queensland government.
According to the Guinness World Records, the oldest recorded thoroughbred racehorse was the 42-year-old chestnut gelding Tango Duke foaled in 1935 in Victoria.
