Very old Brazilian expression, which means "all is (was) lost", with no turning back. Probably from rural origin, just think a farmer trying to rescue a cow from been stuck to death in a swamp.
It's used in situations like "The situation of the company was already bad in the Telecom market, then came the Chinese products and the cow went to the swamp"
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)