The immortal Phar Lap turns 100

Some sources say he was born on 4 October. In any case, Phar Lap is now a centenarian, and this New Zealand-bred hero remains the most famous Australian racehorse ever. A legend in his own lifetime, and in ours still.

It’s a centenary worthy of honour during Melbourne Cup Carnival week because, four years after his birth, this horse achieved a quartet of victories that remains unique. He raced and won at Flemington on each of the four days of the Carnival: Saturday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Most memorably, that succession of wins included his triumph in the 1930 Melbourne Cup.

One other horse in history has approached this exceptional achievement. This happened exactly 150 years ago. The story of Briseis, the brilliant three-year-old filly from Geelong, belongs most fittingly to Crown Oaks Day on Thursday but, in summary, her Cup Week success in 1876 encompassed the Victoria Derby, the Melbourne Cup and the VRC Oaks. She returned to the track the final Saturday for the Mares’ Produce Stakes. After leading half way up the straight, she finished second.

No modern trainer would dream of such a program for their racehorse, however talented. We should note an earlier Melbourne Cup winner—Glencoe from Sydney in 1868—who actually achieved five wins in the space of three successive days by virtue of running (and winning) twice on two days following his Melbourne Cup win.

It was in colonial times, before Cup Week was structured as we know it today. Phar Lap’s 1930 achievement is still within a human lifetime and is recognisable by today’s standards.

Phar Lap came to Flemington in the spring of that year fresh from easily winning the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley. Then followed the 10 furlong (2011m) weight-for-age Melbourne Stakes on Derby Day. Next was the Melbourne Cup, where he carried 62.6 kilograms to victory. Then on Oaks Day he easily won the Linlithgow Stakes over one mile (1617m), Two days later he won the C.B. Fisher Plate (2414m).

If Phar Lap was not already a national celebrity, he became one now. And this in a week that began when criminals tried firing a shotgun at him in a street near his training stables at Caulfield, outwitted by his alert and devoted strapper, Tommy Woodcock.

Melbourne Cup Week 1930 was just part of the Phar Lap story. On such dramas, the legend grew. He came into that week with twenty impressive wins behind him, including the 1929 AJC Derby in Sydney and Victoria Derby at Flemington along with the King’s Cup in Adelaide.

In 1931 and 1932, thirteen more victories followed, including his final triumph in Mexico before his premature death in the USA. While conspiracy theories about wilful or accidental poisoning swiftly emerged, and have grown ever since, the less exciting but more plausible and scientific explanation remains natural causes, from the rapid onset of a condition now understood as duodenitis proximal jejunitis.

Unfortunately the human dramas built around Phar Lap’s life and death overshadow full appreciation of his athleticism on the track. In the Melbourne Stakes he trounced Tregilla, who came to Melbourne after a good win in the AJC Derby. Four lengths behind was Amounis, the leading stakeswinner in Australia at the time, with a swag of first class victories to his name including the latest Caulfield Cup.

In the 1930 Melbourne Cup, Phar Lap carried to victory a record weight for a four-year-old. He started the shortest-priced favourite ever. He beat Second Wind, a good racehorse, by an easy three lengths with the consistent Shadow King third, fresh from a win in the Moonee Valley Gold Cup. In the Linlithgow, Phar Lap coasted home four lengths ahead of the brilliant Mollison. And in the Fisher Stakes, neither Second Wind nor Lineage, the 1929 Oaks winner, came near him.

Tommy Woodcock expressed frustration that trainer Harry Telford, his boss, asked too much of Phar Lap in training but, after a summer spell, the horse returned to racing in the autumn of 1931 seemingly fitter, stronger, better than ever.

Altogether, twelve of Phar Lap’s thirty-six Australian wins were here at Flemington, more than at any other racecourse. If the spring of 1930 was his greatest hour, we should not forget that in the 1929 Victoria Derby he set a race record in beating L.K.S. Mackinnon’s colt Carradale by more than three lengths, with the best of the rest a further eight lengths astern.

Many champions have won the Victoria Derby, including Dulcify, Tobin Bronze, Sailor’s Guide and Tulloch. Eighteen Derby winners have gone on to win a Melbourne Cup. By any measure, none has been the equal of Phar Lap.