Des Moines, Iowa — Coming in at 1,288 pounds, this year’s Iowa State Fair Champion Big Boar is Irish Cowboy, a crossbred boar owned by Bryan and Tricia Britt of Monticello.
Bryan Britt tells IARN he and his family won the biggest boar contest in 2019 as well. He explains how the name Irish Cowboy came about.
“Irish Cowboy has a hair color that is kind of an Irish color,” said Britt. “So, sometimes I call him Irish. For cowboy, he’s had an attitude all of his life. He’s a lot different than the one we showed two years ago. That one was real docile, but this one has an ornery and old attitude. He’s been a loner all of his life. As he’s gotten older, he has gotten better, but he just reminds me of an old crusty, ornery cowboy out on the range and so I call him Irish Cowboy.”
Britt talks about his family’s work to raise Irish Cowboy and get him ready for the state fair.
“He’s been an insemination boar all of his life,” said Britt. “About two years ago we retired him because he got too big. He’s been in a large pen with a lot of bedding. You have to have a lot of room for a boar like that with a natural surface for that bone structure to develop. We have a nutritionist we work with for bone structure on him.”
Britt says they were surprised when Irish Cowboy was announced as the winner of the biggest boar contest because of the other tough competition.
“We saw a video segment last year on Brutus, who is the boar that came in runner up to us this year,” said Britt. “So, we figured he was still out there and thought he would be bigger. Coming into the fair, we thought we would take second. They weighed our boar second to last and he weighed 1,288. I thought Brutus would be bigger until I saw him walking across the ring there, and he ended up being 30 pounds lighter.”
To visit Irish Cowboy at the 2021 Iowa State Fair, you can find him taking a nap just inside the front door of the swine barn the rest of the week.
