Phar Lap (NZ)

Australia's hero, made in New Zealand
9:48 AM Friday Oct 31, 2008

He started only once on North American soil, yet he’s 22nd on the US Blood-Horse list of the 20th century’s top 100 racehorses – above John Henry, Seabiscuit, Alydar, Sunday Silence, Ruffian and Northern Dancer.

He’s the only horse in history to win major races on all four days of the Melbourne Cup Carnival, beginning with what’s now the MacKinnon Stakes (one-mile-and-a quarter), and then the Melbourne Cup (two miles), starting at odds-on with a record weight for a four-year-old of 9.12 (63 kg).

The most famous horse ever to race in Australia

The Linlithgow Stakes (one mile) followed on Oaks Day and finally, the C.B. Fisher Plate (one-and-a-half miles). Phar Lap won all of them “without getting out of second gear”, as his jockey put it, by widening margins of three to four lengths.

In the AJC Craven Plate over 10 furlongs he thrashed the champion Nightmarch by six lengths in Australasian record time.

At his final start at Agua Caliente, New Mexico on 20 March 1932 Phar Lap surpassed even these performances. One observer reported:

Here’s a horse that travelled one-third of the way round the world by boat and train, ran for the first time in his life on a dirt track…had a stable boy for a jockey, covered one mile and five-sixteenths at the very least by being so extremely wide, stopped once and still covered the mile and a quarter in 2.2 4-5.

Sixteen days later he was dead, in circumstances that are still debated today.

Phar Lap is one of the very few thoroughbreds whose name is widely recognised beyond the world of racing, and his short life was filled with drama and a colourful cast of characters.

Like his breeder Alec Roberts, who mated a well-bred, poorly performed stallion with a barely raced great-grand-daughter of the famous foundation mare Miss Kate, and lived long enough to see their son achieve stardom.

Then there was the rich American owner, David Davis, the devoted strapper, Tommy Woodcock, the brilliant jockey, Jim Pike.

And the struggling trainer Harry Telford who liked the pedigree, bought the big, chestnut colt for 160 guineas in 1928 and began the tradition of champions purchased from New Zealand’s National Yearling Sale. 

Mystery and controversy swirl around Phar Lap’s legend, more than 75 years after his death. Yet still the legend grows, because the record stands.

PHAR LAP (NZ) 1926 chestnut gelding
BREEDING	Night Raid (GB)-Entreaty (NZ) by Winkie (GB)
RECORD	51 starts from two to five: 37 wins from 6 furlongs to 2 miles, 5 placings £70,125 (= approximately $6.8 million in 2008)
BREEDER	Alexander Roberts, Seadown, South Canterbury
OWNERS	David Davis; Harry Telford
TRAINER	Harry Telford
JOCKEY	Jim Pike
PRINCIPAL WINS	Agua Caliente Handicap; VRC Melbourne Cup; AJC Derby; VRC Derby; MVRC Cox Plate - twice; AJC Chipping Norton S; AJC St Leger; VRC St Leger; VRC Melbourne S.; VRC Linlithgow S,; VRC C.B. Fisher Plate; Rosehill Guineas; AJC Craven Plate - 3 times;  AJC Randwick Plate - twice; VATC Futurity S; VATC St George S.
AWARDS	Australian Racing Hall of Fame, inaugural inductee, 2001; Legend, 2007