Phar Lap was born in New Zealand on the 4th of October 1926 at the stud farm owned by Alexander Roberts at Seadown near Timaru. Subsequent reports record him as an ordinary looking foal coming from parents of mediocre race track performance, his dam breaking down in the only race she contested. As a foal, Phar Lap appeared ordinary and didn’t show any qualities of the champion he would become.

On the 24th of January 1928 Phar Lap was sold at the Trentham yearling sales held in Wellington that set him on his journey to Australia to join the former New Zealander and struggling trainer Harry Telford who purchased him unseen on behalf of new owner David Davis. The yearling arrived at Sydney looking unattractive and ungainly in his carriage.

On seeing the horse, David Davis was completely unimpressed and instructed Telford to sell him. But Telford stood by the horse’s potential and offered to lease him from Davis for three years. Davis agreed to the terms that meant that Telford both trained and met the upkeep costs for the horse but retained 2/3rds of any of his race winnings.

The name Phar Lap is Thai for lightning. It is reported that a medical student, Aubrey Ping, with a Chinese background who was a regular visitor to the Randwick race track came up with the name but spelt it FARLAP. Telford liked the name, but changed the F to a PH to create a seven letter word, and split it into two words ostensibly to replicate the dominant pattern set by the last 4 Melbourne Cup winners.

Phar Lap had 5 race day starts as a 2 year old in 1929 for 1 win. As a 3 year old Phar Lap made his mark, he had 20 starts for 13 wins and 3 placings. It is worthy to note that the unplaced starts were his first 4 starts as a 3 year old. Being a horse of large stature, it seems he needed time for his frame to develop into the racing machine nature intended of it.

From that point on his only unplaced start was his last race in Australia, the 1931 Melbourne Cup when he was anchored by the heaviest weight ever carried in the history of the event.

Although he finished 8th the run was gallant as Phar Lap had carried 68kg in weight, more weight than any horse including the great Carbine has ever carried in the event. Makybe Diva a 3 times winner of the cup only carried 58kg in her last cup win.

Phar Lap only had 1 more start after the Melbourne Cup and that was at Agua Caliente in America. Phar lap was taken there to avoid the crippling weights being imposed on him in Australia. Again Phar Lap over came the odds. He went into the race as topweight, with an injured hoof on a limited preparation. He not only won the race easily beating some of the best horses in America, but did so in a track record time.

Phar Lap passed away 15 days later on the 5th of April 1932 at Menlo Park, California, of a mystery illness at the time that was sensationlised by the international press by suggestions that the horse had been deliberately poisoned.

Even now close to seventy five years after his death, it is difficult to avoid attributing human qualities to Phar Lap. The coincidence of his rise, triumphs and death with the years 1929 – 1932 – the years of the great depression – seems with hindsight to have been exceptionally well-timed, just like one of his best runs. Phar Lap proved the perfect tonic for a tired, footsore and emotionally drained society.

His rise in fame coincided with the onset of the depression in 1929. While the economy broke down, Phar Lap broke racing records. Throughout 1930 and 1931, the worst years of the depression, Phar Lap’s racing star shone brightly. While people lost jobs, Phar Lap won races and prize money that brought wealth unimagined to owner-trainer Telford. Between September 1930 and March 1931 he won 14 races straight. Then in Autumn 1932, just as positive economic signals first suggested the depression’s savagery was mostly spent, Phar Lap won the world’s richest race of the time, the Agua Caliente Handicap, half the world away in North America. A fortnight later he died, suddenly and suspiciously. Today his legend lives on in art, film, literature and horse racing where he is seen as the measuring stick for comparison of any modern thoroughbred champion.

Phar Lap’s Statistics

Chestnut Geldinga

Born: 4th of October 1926
Died: 5th of April 1932

Sire: Night Raid
Dam: Entreaty

Size: 17.1 hands
Heart weight: 6.3 kg (average horse’s heart weight is around 4.5 kg)

Sold as Lot 41, at the Trentham Sales, 24th January 1928
Price: 160 guineas.

Race Starts: 51
Wins: 37
Placings: 5
Unplaced Starts: 9

Australian Race Earnings: £56,425
American Race Earnings: $50,050