Less than five months after the retirement of Tornado Valley, Andy Gath is preparing to farewell another squaregaiting star from the stable.

Mclovin’s 98th career start will be his last, with Gath and owner Norm Jenkin deciding to retire the nine-year-old following his eighth placing at Cranbourne on Saturday night.

“He’s had history of lameness in his knees and the signs were there that he’s just feeling them a bit more,” Gath told thetrots.com.au.

“His last few runs haven’t been quite to the level that we expect him to be.

“He’s done his job. It was disappointing to end it the way we did last night, but to go one more wouldn’t be fair on the horse. He’s still in pretty good order and he’s a really nice horse to have about.”

The son of Monarchy was purchased by Jenkin and brought to Australia from New Zealand in early 2019 and finishes a wonderful racetrack journey with 28 wins – including 21 while trained by Gath – and $453,388 in prizemoney.

“We got to take him to New Zealand. He ran second the first time behind Tough Monarch and then in the Dominion Handicap he got the thumps. We ended up taking him to Auckland, but he got really sick and had to be scratched out of the Inter Dominion series. He was probably never quite as good after that…,” Gath said.

“His form with Kate (Gath) on to any other driver, the difference is nearly 50m for whatever reason. I don’t know why, but you just have to look at the results and you see the evidence.

“I think a lot of people would love to train a horse and own a horse as good as him… I’ve been very fortunate as a trainer and Norm as an owner to have horses that have performed better than him, but he was such a lovable horse with the way he used to race. You had to beat him. Tornado Valley was a bit the same.

“To have two horses virtually at the same time that went to war for you every time, you are pretty proud of them.”

Mclovin won the 2019 Bill Collins Trotters Sprint and 2021 Maori Mile at the elite level, but it was perhaps his debut on our shores that Gath remembers best.

Gath had a stablemate earmarked for the 2019 South Australian Trotters Cup, but was left looking for a replacement when that horse went amiss in the days leading up to the event.

“Mclovin had only been there five or six days and I hadn’t fast worked him or anything,” Gath recalled.

“I said to Kate (Gath) that I was going to nominate Mclovin and she said ‘you can’t take him, he hasn’t fast worked’.

“I told her we’d just take him to Melton with Tornado Valley, give them a really good hit-out on the Tuesday and see how he goes.

“Tornado Valley is a really good track worker and he beat him in the workout, so then I put him in at Globe Derby and that was his first run for me.

“He won by about 20m and it was the biggest bet I’ve had in my life.”

>> READ MORE: Gath Racing farewells Tornado Valley as the champ departs