May 12, 2004

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Publication Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Cover story: Phar Lap -- U.S. not guilty

By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer

Super horse! Wonder horse! Red Terror! Anzac Antelope!

With such terms, the Australians glorified their racing giant, Phar Lap. A beacon of triumph during the dark days of the Depression, the 17-hand gelding inspired a country by winning 37 out of 51 races from 1929 to 1932.

So it's no wonder that conspiracy theories broke out after Phar Lap died -- quickly, painfully and mysteriously -- in Atherton, on April 5, 1932. It was just 16 days after he beat North America's best horses by two lengths in its richest race, the Agua Caliente Handicap, in Tijuana, on March 20.

The horse was resting up on the Atherton ranch of Edward T. and Suzanne Perry, prominent in Peninsula horse-racing circles at the time, while his American owner, David J. Davis, was organizing movie rights and an ambitious racing schedule back East.

Early in the morning Tommy Woodcock, Phar Lap's strapper (groom) and regular companion, found him feverish, bloated and in pain. A few hours later the horse died in agony; Tommy wept over him. Autopsies showed Phar Lap died of acute enteritis, severe inflammation of the intestine. The veterinarians thought death might have been caused by a toxic substance, possibly poison.

The press had a field day with the sudden death of Australia's national hero on the eve of his expected triumphs over the best horses America could put forward. Some liked to pin their national tragedy on the Yanks. Suggestions included arsenic sprayed on trees near the stable where he died, near the playing field of today's Menlo College. Or maybe it was disgruntled horse owners, gangsters, the Mafia, or possibly bad feed.

More than 70 years later, the fascination still holds -- both in Australia, and in local horse and history circles. "After all these years, that horse is still so important to Australia," says Marion Oster, president of the Atherton Heritage Association, and a born-again Phar Lap fan.

Mrs. Oster has been active in the revival of interest in the Phar Lap mystery through an Australian friend, Margaret Cass, who grew up during the Depression and has been promoting Phar Lap ever since. She recalls that Mrs. Cass used to say: "Phar Lap was to Australia what Shirley Temple was to America. Shirley Temple brought that sparkle and joy in hard times; Phar Lap was a ray of sunshine."

That 70 years of interest has brought new insights into the mystery of Phar Lap's death. "Yanks are not guilty" of killing Phar Lap, one paper said recently. The horse didn't die of arsenic or the mob or the Mafia. Death was from natural causes, probably bacterial.

San Mateo County's History Buffs packed Atherton Town Hall in February to hear Ms. Oster give the latest information on the death of Phar Lap, just a few blocks away from the stall where he died. It is still used by Menlo College in its maintenance yard.

One theory is bacterial infection caused by moldy feed. The Australians were afraid their horse would be poisoned, Ms. Oster recounted. He had received threats and at least one attack, so his owners sent Australian feed with him as a precaution. "They were so paranoid that someone was going to kill their horse, they brought feed with them, and it became moldy," Ms. Oster says.

A more scientific explanation was published in a new book on Phar Lap in 2000. A prominent veterinarian studied the autopsy reports and concluded the death was probably caused by Duodenitis-Proximal jejunitis, caused by a bacterial toxin. Since the disease, which matches the symptoms and autopsy results, was not identified until the 1980s, veterinarians would not have recognized it in 1932.

The disease is caused by stress, particularly the stress of travel, according to the recent book, "Phar Lap: How a Horse Became a Hero of His Time and an Icon of a Nation." In the previous four months, Phar Lap had traveled 18 days by sea from Australia to New Zealand to San Francisco, and then by truck 600 miles to Tijuana and back.

Authors Geoff Armstrong and Peter Thompson conclude: "Phar lap's death (at age 5) was tragically premature and painfully sudden. No amount of care could have prevented it; no amount of skill could have stopped it."

Making of a legend

Phar Lap's legend, from homely colt to racing icon, is curiously similar to Seabiscuit's, except that Phar Lap was a foreigner, and died dramatically.

In fact, famous jockey George Woolf rode Seabiscuit to many a victory on his good-luck piece -- Phar Lap's battered kangaroo-skin saddle.

The chestnut colt was born October 4, 1926, in Timaru, New Zealand. His name is the Thai word for "lightning."

In 1929 Harry Telford, a down-on-his-luck Australian trainer, picked the gawky yearling on the basis of his breeding (by Night Raid out of Entreaty), and talked American businessman and horse owner David J. Davis into buying him for 160 guineas ($336.)

Davis was so unimpressed with the gangly colt covered with warts that he leased him back to Telford for three years. As Bill Lane of Portola Valley says, "They got, him on the cheap, and they trained the hell out of him."

The other key human in Phar Lap's life was Tommy Woodcock, who took him on as a strapper, and became his constant companion. Reports agree that Tommy often slept with Phar Lap, that Phar Lap followed him around like a dog, and even refused to eat if Tommy wasn't there. The New York Times once wrote, "They frolic as two kittens."

From 1929 to 1932, Phar Lap gained in size, power, speed, and success. As a 2-year-old, he raced five times and won once. By the time he was 3, the gelding had filled out and grown enormous. He won 13 races out of 20 starts, but came in third in the prestigious Melbourne Cup in 1929.

At 4 years old, Phar Lap hit his stride, and became a star in a country plagued by 25 percent unemployment. Out of 16 starts, he scored 14 straight wins and came in second in the other two races.

Phar Lap's success also brought threats, presumably by people with a financial stake in removing him. These culminated November 1, 1930, when some people in a car shot at him and missed. He went on to win the Melbourne Stakes that afternoon.

Three days later, Phar Lap coasted to victory in the 1930 Melbourne Cup -- the equivalent of our Kentucky Derby -- carrying 138 pounds. That's nine pounds more weight than any horse had ever carried in the 69-year history of the race, according to a history published by the Museum of Victoria.

At 5, Phar Lap was the darling of the crowds, and the bane of the betting and racing establishment. Despite being saddled with higher and higher weights, he still won eight out of nine races. In the Melbourne Cup, he was loaded with 150 pounds, 22 pounds over the standard weight for his age. He still came in eighth.

Mr. Davis, who was not one of Australian racing's in-group, became increasingly frustrated with the killing weights assigned to his horse. Meanwhile, he was being wooed by the sponsors of the Agua Caliente racetrack at Tijuana, to bring his super-horse to race in North America.

Phar Lap in America

Agua Caliente was quite a place in 1932 in the depth of the Depression and the height of Prohibition. Just over the Mexican border, it was a Mecca for liquor, vice, gambling, and horse racing.

There, Phar Lap showed his stuff. After an arduous sea voyage and a 600-mile drive, he had just weeks to train for the richest stakes in North America. Plus, he cracked a hoof before the big race and needed a special shoe and bindings.

Accounts of the race describe Phar Lap getting off to a slow start on the hard dirt track -- as much as 50 feet behind the field of 11 of America's top horses, including Kentucky Derby winner Reveille Boy. Then he surged to the front of the pack. He won the $100,000 stakes by two lengths, and covered the 1 1/4 mile course in a record 2 minutes, 2 4/5 seconds.

Sixteen days later Phar Lap was dead, most likely as the result of exhaustion, overwork, stress and travel.

In the international furor that followed, studies, theories, charges and counter-charges ricocheted around the world. Mr. Lane remembers that he and his father and brother visited Phar Lap's stall a day or so after he died.

What happened afterward was almost as grotesque as his death. After several autopsies, Phar Lap was divvied up. His skin was packed in formaldehyde, and eventually mounted. His bones were sent to New Zealand. His huge heart, which weighed 14 pounds -- close to twice that of a normal racehorse -- went to the racing museum in Sydney. What was left of Phar Lap was buried under a mound somewhere on the Perry properties in Atherton.

"It was a little gross," says Ms. Oster.

The Peninsula connection

Phar Lap is now the prime attraction in the new Melbourne Museum.

"Phar Lap is in a big case with red velvet all around," says Mrs. Oster, who visited him in Australia last fall. "Little school children come in, saying, 'Where's Phar Lap? Where's Phar Lap?'"

Phar Lap's fine setting is partly due to Bill and Jean Lane. When Mr. Lane, a passionate horseman and former publisher of Sunset magazine, went to Australia as ambassador in 1985, one of the first things he did was to visit Phar Lap. "He was very poorly displayed," Mr. Lane recalls, so the Lanes made a gift to the museum toward the new display. "Now you walk into the museum, you think the horse is alive," he says.

When Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke came to San Francisco a few years ago, Mr. Lane took him on the pilgrimage to Phar Lap's stall.

Ms. Oster got involved with the Phar Lap mystique because Australians don't all know the difference between Menlo Park and Atherton. A 1998 article about Ms. Oster in the Almanac quoted her as saying that Phar Lap acutally died in Atherton, while most books and the movie say he died in Menlo Park.

Someone in Los Angeles sent the article to Phar Lap fancier Margaret Cass in Australia, who contacted Ms. Oster.

A friendship was born. When Ms. Cass visited Atherton in 2000, Mayor Nan Chapman proclaimed Phar Lap Day, and presented her with a resolution from the City Council. "She was in tears," says Ms. Oster. "It was thanks to the Almanac."

There are some other local mysteries about Phar Lap, such as where his remains are buried. While they are supposedly under a mound on the former Perry property, the problem is that there were two Perry properties: 31 acres on El Camino Real, just north of Menlo College; and 14 acres along the Alameda de las Pulgas between Atherton Avenue and Polhemus Drive.

Ms. Oster knows people who believe he is buried at each place. Australia even sent a team with metal detectors to see if they could find the metal box, she says. "They didn't find anything."

One other Atherton memento has found its way back to Australia, Ms. Oster says. In the Sydney racing museum is his pink granite headstone, donated by Mrs. Beverly Bittner and her son. Blake. It reads: "Phar Lap -- a Noble Horse."

Phar Lap as an celebrity icon

Over the years, Phar Lap's celebrity status has spread through Australia and beyond with a raft of specialty items, such as bookmarks, coins, and bric a brac. There's a tea towel with an inspirational poem, and Google even shows software named "Phar Lap."

A 1983 movie called "Phar Lap" beat "Seabiscuit" by 20 years.

There are also at least two books on Phar Lap. "The Phar Lap Story" by Michael Williamson was published in 1983 by Budget Books Pty. Ltd.

"Phar Lap," a coffee table book by Geoff Armstrong and Peter Thompson, was first published in 2000 in Australia. A revised version appeared as a paperback in 2003. ###

Phar Lap prose from Damon Runyon

From the book, "Phar Lap," these are excerpts from an article by Damon Runyon called, "No, the Yanks didn't kill Phar Lap:"

"Suddenly he began covering ground in great leaps like a mammoth kangaroo and he soon overhauled the field and won by much open daylight."

"The time for the mile and a quarter was 2:02.6 and the American turfmen who saw the race gasped and said Phar Lap was something out of the equine world. No, Sonny, no one in this country would dream of murdering a horse like that."

Al Jolson's ode to Phar Lap

The night Phar Lap won the race at Agua Caliente, Al Jolson, in the main act at the casino, sang this parody of "It's a long way to Tipperary":

It's a long way to Caliente,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way across the ocean
For the richest prize I know.

Goodbye Dr. Freeland,
So long, Spanish Play.
It's a long, long way to Caliente,
But Phar Lap knows the way!

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