Best Australian race horse ever!!! 51 starts(37-3-3). Wnr Melbourne Cup 1930. STAKEMONEY: £56,425, plus $US50,000 BIGGEST WINS: Agua Caliente Handicap; Melbourne Cup; AJC Derby; Victoria Derby; WS Cox Plate Phar Lap was foaled in Timaru, New Zealand, late in the season on 4 October 1926. DIED: Menlo Park, California, 5 April 1932 TRAINER: HR Telford To see the Phar Lap story visit http://museumvictoria.com.au/pharlap/story/index.asp
famous racehorse
died April 5, 1932 by poison
A giant with a heart too big for one continent. Phar Lap ran as if fatigue didn't apply to him — and during the Great Depression, for millions of people, neither did despair. Then, on April 5, 1932, sixteen days after dominating the Agua Caliente Handicap in Mexico, he collapsed at a ranch near San Francisco and died in the arms of his devoted strapper, Tommy Woodcock.
The official verdict was internal hemorrhage. But arsenic turned up in his system, and theories have multiplied ever since: American gangsters protecting their bets, an arsenic-based tonic (a common practice among trainers at the time), even a bacterial infection not identified until decades later. A 2008 study confirmed arsenic poisoning — but never whether it was deliberate.
When his heart was weighed, the mystery of his stamina made sense: 6.2 kg, nearly double the average thoroughbred's. It's why Australians still say someone has "a heart as big as Phar Lap's."