code: private static String extractCowTemplate(final String cow) throws CowParseException {
  
  		Matcher matcher = COWSTART_RE.matcher(cow);
  		if (matcher.find(0)) {
  			String result = matcher.replaceFirst("");
  			return result;
  		} else {
  			throw new CowParseException("Could not parse cow " + cow);
  		}
  	}
docs: Extracts the ascii art part of the cowfile, removing any before or after PERL comments, variable assignments, weird EOC markers etc.
  @param cow The raw cowfile content.
  @return The ascii art portion of the cowfile.
  @throws CowParseException if the cowfile cannot be parsed.