He did not race at age two and as three-year-old was purchased by driver/trainer Robert Farrington for $15,000 who later gifted 50% of the horse to his wife Vivian and sold the other half to Paul Siebert.
Rambling Willie sustained "bowed tendons" in both front legs early in his ten-plus-year racing career, as well as other nagging injuries expected in a racehorse competing for so long a period.
While racing at Hollywood Park Racetrack in California, he suffered such a severe bout of colic that he was operated on in a last effort to save him, euthanasia being the only alternative.
Upon the horse's death, Bob Farrington, his retired Hall of Fame driver and trainer, was asked what he had seen in Willie that others missed during the early part of his career.
Farrington replied in the words of legendary Thoroughbred trainer "Sunny" Jim Fitzsimmons, "The most important thing about a racehorse, you can't see."