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Phar Lap
Phar Lap and jockey Jim Pike Flemington Racecourse c. 1930
Sire	Night Raid (GB)
Grandsire	Radium (GB)
Dam	Entreaty (NZ)
Damsire	Winkie (GB)
Sex	Gelding
Foaled	4 October 1926 Timaru, New Zealand
Died	5 April 1932(1932-04-05) (aged 5) Menlo Park, California, U.S.
Country	Australia
Colour	Chestnut
Breeder	Alick Roberts
Owner	David Davis and Harry Telford
Trainer	Harry Telford
Record	51:37–3–2
Earnings	£A66,738
Major wins
Rosehill Guineas (1929) AJC Derby (1929) Craven Plate (1929, 1930, 1931) Victoria Derby (1929) AJC St Leger (1930) VRC St Leger (1930) Chipping Norton Stakes (1930) AJC Plate (1930) Chelmsford Stakes (1930) Hill Stakes (1930, 1931) W. S. Cox Plate (1930, 1931) Melbourne Stakes (1930, 1931) Melbourne Cup (1930) Linlithgow Stakes (1930) C.B. Fisher Plate (1930) St George Stakes (1931) Futurity Stakes (1931) Underwood Stakes (1931) Memsie Stakes (1931) Agua Caliente Handicap (1932)
Honours
#22 – Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century 1983 Motion Picture – Phar Lap: Heart of a Nation Australian Racing Hall of Fame New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame Phar Lap Stakes run at Rosehill Racecourse
Last updated on 29 April 2009

Phar Lap (4 October 1926 – 5 April 1932) was a New Zealand-born champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse. Achieving great success during his distinguished career, his initial underdog status gave people hope during the early years of the Great Depression. He won the Melbourne Cup, two Cox Plates, the Australian Derby, and 19 other weight-for-age races. He is universally revered as one of the greatest race horses of all time, not just in Australia but in the history of Thoroughbred horse racing.

One of his greatest performances was winning the Agua Caliente Handicap in Mexico in track-record time in his final race. He won in a different country, after a bad start many lengths behind the leaders, with no training before the race, and he split his hoof during the race.

After a sudden and mysterious illness, Phar Lap died in 1932 in Menlo Park, California. At the time, he was the third-highest stakes-winner in the world. His mounted hide is displayed at the Melbourne Museum, his skeleton at the Museum of New Zealand, and his heart at the National Museum of Australia.

Name

The name Phar Lap derives from the common Zhuang and Thai word for lightning: ฟ้าแลบ [fáː lɛ̂p], literally 'sky flash'.

Phar Lap was called "The Wonder Horse," "The Red Terror," and "Big Red" (the latter nickname was also given to two of the greatest United States racehorses, Man o' War and Secretariat). He was affectionately known as "Bobby" to his strapper Tommy Woodcock He was also sometimes referred to as "Australia's Wonder Horse."

According to the Museum of Victoria, Aubrey Ping, a medical student at the University of Sydney, suggested "Farlap" as the horse's name. Ping knew the word from his father, a Zhuang-speaking Chinese immigrant. Phar Lap's trainer Harry Telford liked the name, but changed the F to PH to create a seven letter word, which was split in two in keeping with the dominant naming pattern of Melbourne Cup winners.

Early life

A chestnut gelding, Phar Lap was foaled on 4 October 1926 in Seadown near Timaru in the South Island of New Zealand. He was sired by Night Raid from Entreaty by Winkie. He was by the same sire as the Melbourne Cup winner Nightmarch. Phar Lap was a brother to seven other horses, Fortune's Wheel, Nea Lap (won 5 races), Nightguard, All Clear, Friday Night, Te Uira and Raphis, none of which won a principal (stakes) race. He was a half-brother to another four horses, only two of which were able to win any races at all.

Sydney trainer Harry Telford persuaded American businessman David J. Davis to buy the colt at auction, based on his pedigree. Telford's brother Hugh, who lived in New Zealand, was asked to bid up to 190 guineas at the 1928 Trentham Yearling Sales. When the horse was obtained for a mere 160 guineas, he thought it was a great bargain until the colt arrived in Australia. The horse was gangly, his face was covered with warts, and he had an awkward gait. Davis was furious when he saw the colt as well, and refused to pay to train the horse. Telford had not been particularly successful as a trainer, and Davis was one of his few remaining owners. To placate Davis, he agreed to train the horse for nothing, in exchange for a two-thirds share of any winnings. Telford leased the horse for three years and was eventually sold joint ownership by Davis.

Although standing a winning racehorse at stud could be quite lucrative, Telford gelded Phar Lap anyway, hoping the colt would concentrate on racing.

Racing career

Phar Lap finished last in the first race and did not place in his next three races. He won his first race on 27 April 1929, the Maiden Juvenile Handicap at Rosehill, ridden by Jack Baker of Armidale, a 17-year-old apprentice. He didn't race for several months but was then entered in a series of races, in which he moved up in class. Phar Lap took second in the Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick on 14 September 1929, and the racing community started treating him with respect. He won the Rosehill Guineas by three lengths on 21 September 1929, ridden by James L. Munro.

As his achievements grew, there were some who tried to halt his progress. Criminals tried to shoot Phar Lap on the morning of Saturday 1 November 1930 after he had finished track work. They missed, and later that day he won the Melbourne Stakes, and three days later the Melbourne Cup as odds-on favourite at 8 to 11.

In the four years of his racing career, Phar Lap won 37 of 51 races he entered, including the Melbourne Cup, being ridden by Jim Pike, in 1930 with 9 st 12 lb (138 pounds (63 kg)). In that year and 1931, he won 14 races in a row. From his win as a three-year-old in the VRC St. Leger Stakes until his final race in Mexico, Phar Lap won 32 of 35 races. In the three races that he did not win, he ran second on two occasions, beaten by a short head and a neck, and in the 1931 Melbourne Cup he finished eighth when carrying 10 st 10 lb (150 pounds (68 kg)).

Phar Lap at the time was owned by American businessman David J. Davis and leased to Telford. After their three-year lease agreement ended, Telford had enough money to become joint owner of the horse. Davis then had Phar Lap shipped to North America to race. Telford did not agree with this decision and refused to go, so Davis, who along with his wife traveled to Mexico with him, brought Phar Lap's strapper Tommy Woodcock as his new trainer. Phar Lap was shipped by boat to Agua Caliente Racetrack near Tijuana, Mexico, to compete in the Agua Caliente Handicap, which was offering the largest prize money ever offered in North America racing. Phar Lap won in track-record time while carrying 129 pounds (58.5 kg). The horse was ridden by Australian jockey Billy Elliot for his seventh win from seven rides. From there, the horse was sent to a private ranch near Menlo Park, California, while his owner negotiated with racetrack officials for special race appearances.

Death

Early on 5 April 1932, the horse's strapper for the North American visit, Tommy Woodcock, found him in severe pain and with a high temperature. Within a few hours, Phar Lap haemorrhaged to death. An autopsy revealed that the horse's stomach and intestines were inflamed, leading many to believe the horse had been deliberately poisoned. There have been alternative theories, including accidental poisoning from lead insecticide and a stomach condition. It was not until the 1980s that the infection could be formally identified.

In 2000, equine specialists studying the two necropsies concluded that Phar Lap probably died of duodenitis-proximal jejunitis, an acute bacterial gastroenteritis.

In 2006, Australian Synchrotron Research scientists said it was almost certain Phar Lap was poisoned with a large single dose of arsenic in the hours before he died, perhaps supporting the theory that Phar Lap was killed on the orders of US gangsters, who feared the Melbourne Cup-winning champion would inflict big losses on their illegal bookmakers. No real evidence of involvement by a criminal element exists, however.

Sydney veterinarian Percy Sykes believes deliberate poisoning did not cause the death. He said "In those days, arsenic was quite a common tonic, usually given in the form of a solution (Fowler's Solution)", and suggests this was the cause of the high levels. "It was so common that I'd reckon 90 percent of the horses had arsenic in their system."

In December 2007, Phar Lap's mane was tested for multiple doses of arsenic which, if found, would point to accidental poisoning.

In April 2008, an 82-page handwritten notebook belonging to Telford and containing recipes for tonics given to Phar Lap in the days before swabbing was sold by a Melbourne auction house. It showed that Phar Lap was given tonics designed to boost his performance that included arsenic, strychnine, cocaine and caffeine. The find gave credence to Woodcock's deathbed admission in 1985 that Phar Lap may have been given an overdose of a tonic before the horse died in 1932. The notebook was sold to the Melbourne Museum for $37,000.

On 19 June 2008, the Melbourne Museum released the findings of the forensic investigation conducted by Ivan Kempson, University of South Australia, and Dermot Henry, Natural Science Collections at Museum Victoria. Kempson analysed six hairs from Phar Lap's mane at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. These high resolution X-rays detect arsenic in hair samples, showing the specific difference "between arsenic, which had entered the hair cells via the blood and arsenic which had infused the hair cells by the taxidermy process when he was stuffed and mounted at the museum".

Kempson and Henry discovered that in the 30 to 40 hours before Phar Lap's death, the horse ingested a massive dose of arsenic. "We can't speculate where the arsenic came from, but it was easily accessible at the time", Henry said.

In October 2011 the Sydney Morning Herald published an article in which a New Zealand physicist and information from Phar Lap's strapper state that the great horse was never given any tonic with arsenic and that he died of an infection. Said Putt, "Unless we are prepared to say that Tommy Woodcock was a downright liar, which even today, decades after the loveable and respected horseman's death, would ostracise us with the Australian racing public, we must accept him on his word. The ineluctable conclusion we are left with, whether we like it or not, is that Phar Lap's impeccable achievements here and overseas were utterly tonic, stimulant, and drug-free."

Contradicting this is the tonic book of Harry Telford, Phar Lap's owner and trainer, on display in Museum Victoria, Melbourne. One recipe for a "general tonic" has a main ingredient of arsenic and has written below it: "A great tonic for all horses". Several theories have been proposed for the large amount of arsenic in Phar Lap's body.

Legacy

Following his death, Phar Lap's heart was donated to the Institute of Anatomy in Canberra and his skeleton to the New Zealand's National Museum in Wellington. After preparations of the hide by New York City taxidermist Louis Paul Jonas, Phar Lap's stuffed body was placed in the Australia Gallery at Melbourne Museum. The hide and the skeleton were put on exhibition together when Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa lent the skeleton to the Melbourne Museum in September 2010 as part of celebrations for the 150th running of the 2010 Melbourne Cup.

Phar Lap's heart was remarkable for its size, weighing 6.2 kilograms (14 lb), compared with a normal horse's heart at 3.2 kilograms (7.1 lb). Now held at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, it is the object visitors most often request to see. The author and film maker Peter Luck was convinced the heart is a fake. In Luck's 1979 television series This Fabulous Century, the daughter of Walker Neilson, the government veterinarian who performed the first post-mortem on Phar Lap, says her father told her the heart was necessarily cut to pieces during the autopsy, and the heart on display is that of a draughthorse. However the expression "a heart as big as Phar Lap" to describe a very generous or courageous person became a popular idiom.

Several books and films have featured Phar Lap, including the 1983 film Phar Lap, and the song "Phar Lap—Farewell To You".

Phar Lap was one of five inaugural inductees into both the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame. In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the Top 100 U.S. Thoroughbred champions of the 20th century, Phar Lap was ranked No. 22.

The horse is considered to be a national icon in both Australia and New Zealand. In 1978 he was honoured on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post and features in the Australian citizenship test.

Phar Lap has been honoured with a $500,000 life-sized bronze memorial near his birthplace in Timaru, New Zealand, that was unveiled on 25 November 2009. The statue is located at the entrance to Phar Lap Raceway in Washdyke. There is also a life-sized bronze statue at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne.

Phar Lap has several residential streets named after him in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. (In many cases, the name is merged into a single word "Pharlap".)

In 1931, Gilbert Percy Whitley, an ichthyologist at the Australian Museum, proposed a new genus of seahorse, Farlapiscis, named after Phar Lap. Farlapiscis was subsequently categorized as a junior synonym of the genus Hippocampus.

1930 racebook

• 1930 AJC St Leger racebook front cover
• 1930 AJC St Leger showing raceday officials
• 1930 AJC St Leger and the winner, Phar Lap
• 1930 AJC St Leger raceday showing music entertainment for patrons
• Raceday catering arrangements and racecourse detectives
• Back cover showing charges at the entrance gates

Race record

1928/1929: Two-year-old season

1929/1930: Three-year-old season

1930/1931: Four-year-old season

1931/1932: Five-year-old season

Total: 51 starts – 37 wins, 3 seconds, 2 thirds, 2 fourths, 7 unplaced

Pedigree

See also

• Thoroughbred racing in Australia
• Thoroughbred racing in New Zealand
• List of Melbourne Cup winners
• List of notable Thoroughbred racehorses
• List of racehorses
• New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame
• Repeat winners of horse races

Notes

1. ^ "Phar Lap". The Australian Racing Museum. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
2. "Pedigree". Pedigreequery.com. 30 April 2007. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
3. "Phar Lap Forever". The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. November 2017. p. 1. Retrieved 28 November 2021.
4. "Phar Lap". Thoroughbred Heritage. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
5. ^ "Story of Phar Lap". pharlap.org.nz. Archived from the original on 29 August 2009. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
6. "Phar Lap, Agua Caliente". Museum of Victoria. p. 1. Archived from the original on 31 July 2008. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
7. Reason, Michael (2005). Phar Lap - A True Legend. Melbourne, Australia: Museum Victoria. pp. 35–36. ISBN 0-9577471-9-5.
8. "Phar Lap's heart at the National Museum of Australia". Archived from the original on 21 June 2014. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
9. "Lightning". Phar Lap: Australia's wonder horse. Museum Victoria. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
10. ^ "The Phar Lap Story". Archived from the original on 14 May 2009. Retrieved 20 April 2009.
11. "Phar Lap called Bobby round the stables". Mountainhomeplace.com. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
12. "Phar Lap". Museum Victoria. Archived from the original on 6 June 2007. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
13. Museum Victoria. "Background to the naming of Phar Lap – Museum of Victoria". Museumvictoria.com.au. Archived from the original on 14 December 2007. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
14. "The Horse". Museum Victoria. Archived from the original on 7 June 2007. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
15. Pring, Peter; Analysis of Champion Racehorses, The Thoroughbred Press, Sydney, 1977, ISBN 0-908133-00-6
16. ^ "Phar Lap (1926–1932)". Te Papa. p. 2. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
17. Phil Purser. "Jack Baker rode himself into Australian racing history". Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
18. "Shot fired at Phar Lap". Trove.nla.gov.au. 3 November 1930. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
19. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewar. "Collections:Phar Lap". Retrieved 20 April 2009.
20. "Phar Lap wins the cup". Trove.nla.gov.au. 5 November 1930. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
21. Moriarty, Richard (28 October 2006). "Blame 'The Brazilian'". News.com.au. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
22. Geoff Armstrong and Peter Thompson (2000). Melbourne Cup 1930. Allen & Unwin. ISBN 978-1-74114-750-6.
23. "Phar Lap poisoned, scientists say". ABC News Online. 23 October 2006.
24. "PHAR LAP WAS POISONED". The Courier-Mail. Brisbane: National Library of Australia. 19 September 1936. p. 11. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
25. "Catalyst (2008 report on arsenic death of Phar Lap)". ABC News Online. 19 June 2008.
26. "Phar Lap arsenic claims premature: expert". ABC News Online. 23 October 2006.
27. "Phar Lap notebook sells for $37,000". The Age/Australian Associated Press. 24 April 2008.
28. "Sydney Morning Herald: It's official, Phar Lap was poisoned". Smh.com.au. 19 June 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
29. Kempson I, Henry D (2010). "Synchrotron Radiation Reveals Arsenic Poisoning and Metabolism in Hair: The Case of Phar Lap". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 49 (25): 4237–4240. doi:10.1002/anie.200906594. PMID 20432493.
30. "Yahoo! Sports: Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning". Sports.yahoo.com. Archived from the original on 27 June 2008. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
31. "Phar Lap poisoning theory down the drain". The Sydney Morning Herald.
32. "Tonic Book – Harry Telford, Phar Lap, 1930s". Archived from the original on 24 April 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2013.
33. Wallquist, Calla (3 October 2016). "Phar Lap's 90th birthday". www.TheGuardian.com. Guardian News & Media. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
34. Moira White (2017). "E.H. Gibson, taxidermist, and the assembly of Phar Lap's skeleton". Tuhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. 28. Te Papa: 80–89. ISSN 1173-4337. Wikidata Q106839617.
35. David Dale, "Fakes & Fictions", Sydney Morning Herald, 18 September 1999, Spectrum, p.7s
36. Jeffery Pike and Brian Bell (2002). Australia. Langenscheidt. p. 105. ISBN 9812347992.
37. Bruce Moore (2008). Speaking Our Language: The Story of Australian English. Oxford University Press. p. 205. ISBN 978-0195565782.
38. "Sportsmen and women (... and a horse and a boat)". Australian Government. Australian High Commission – New Zealand. Retrieved 24 April 2009.
39. ^ "Phar Lap's return to Timaru". The Phar Lap Trust. Archived from the original on 30 January 2018. Retrieved 25 April 2009.
40. "Minister promotes Spring Racing Carnival in New Zealand". From the Minister for Racing, Minister for tourism. Retrieved 27 April 2009.
41. http://www.australianstamp.com/images/large/0012460.jpg
42. "Just how Australian are you?". Democrats.org.au. 5 October 2007. Archived from the original on 14 October 2007. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
43. "Phar Lap sculpture unveiled in Timaru". Radio New Zealand. 26 November 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
44. Photo of the statue of Phar Lap at Flemington Racecourse – National Library of Australia
45. Whitley, Gilbert P. (1931). "New Names for Australian Fishes". The Australian Zoologist. 6 (4): 313.
46. Whitley, Gilbert; Allan, Joyce (1958). "Phar Lap, The Short-Snouted or Yellow-Ringed Sea Horse". The Sea-Horse and its Relatives. Melbourne: Georgian House. p. 35.
47. Scales, Helen (2009). "Notes: Chapter 2". Poseidon's Steed: The Story of Seahorses, from Myth to Reality. New York: Gotham Books. Footnote 28. ISBN 978-1-101-13376-7.
48. Ginsburg, Isaac (1937). "Review of the Seahorses (Hippocampus) Found on the Coasts of the American Continents and of Europe". Proceedings of the United States National Museum. 83 (2997): 530. doi:10.5479/si.00963801.83-2997.497.
49. Kuiter, Rudie H. (2001). "Revision of the Australian seahorses of the genus Hippocampus (Syngnathiformes: Syngnathidae) with descriptions of nine new species". Records of the Australian Museum. 53 (3): 297. doi:10.3853/j.0067-1975.53.2001.1350.

External links

• Killing Phar Lap: A Forensic Investigation Podcast
• Phar Lap at Museum Victoria, Melbourne Australia
• Phar Lap at Te Papa, New Zealand
• Phar Lap's heart at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra Archived 21 June 2014 at the Wayback Machine
• National Museum of Australia: Protecting and photographing Phar Lap's heart Archived 21 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
• Phar Lap Australia's Wonder Horse
• Digital Photo Collection on Phar Lap
• Images and link to the story of Phar Lap at Museum Victoria Archived 9 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine
• Photo album owned by David Davis, owner of Phar Lap Archived 22 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine
• Photos of Phar Lap's heart Archived 22 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine

• 1926 racehorse births
• 1932 racehorse deaths
• Australian Racing Hall of Fame horses
• New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame horses
• Racehorses bred in New Zealand
• Racehorses trained in Australia
• Melbourne Cup winners
• Cox Plate winners
• Victoria Derby winners
• Horse monuments
• Thoroughbred family 2-r
• Animal sculptures in Australia
• Individual taxidermy exhibits
• Deaths by arsenic poisoning