Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton
Phar Lap
By Armstrong & Thompson
Published by Allen and Unwin
 The gangly 160-guinea gelding purchased in New Zealand in 1929 gave little indication to most that he had the stuff of champions. For those who did believe, the ride that Phar Lap was to take them on over his illustrious three-year racing life was the stuff of legends.
The statistics say it all: 37 wins, including the 1930 Melbourne Cup, from 51 starts (unplaced only nine times, with eight of those as a three year old - once he had his racing legs he was unplaced just the one time, and that was after bearing the enormous weight of 68 kilograms in the 1931 Melbourne Cup).
As Banjo Peterson said: 'Phar Lap, the one and only, a freak, a horse of the century'. A horse to keep a nation enthralled.
It's difficult from this distance to tell exactly what part sporting icons like Don Bradman and Phar Lap truly played in boosting national morale after the devastation of World War I (over 61,000 Australians dead), the influenza epidemic of 1919 (which took 11,919 lives) and the Great Depression of 1929, but nary a book on the subjects gets published without grandiose claims that it was this contemporaneous golden sporting duo that showed Australians the light at the end of a dark period in history.
This new comprehensive work on Phar Lap is no exception.
In his foreword to the book, former Prime Minister (and racing aficionado) Bob Hawke argues, 'no other achiever in the world of sport has since captured the imagination of the Australian public as did these two'.
Certainly for a country 'enjoying' less than three decades of official nationhood (and still strongly tied to the traditions and thoughts of 'mother' England) it can have done no harm to suddenly have two sporting giants doing us proud.
Phar Lap, by Geoff Armstrong and Peter Thompson, is billed as the 'thrilling, mysterious and tragic story of how a horse became a hero of his time and an icon of a nation' - and this reader/reviewer can do nothing but agree.
Minutely detailing the life and achievements of Phar Lap (or 'Bobby' as his trainer Tommy Woodcock used to call him) from his birth in the year 1926 to his suspicious death after running (and winning) the Agua Caliente Handicap in Mexico in 1932, this oversized book is a wealth of information and incredible pictures.
Not content just to rehash old history, the book also weighs in with a new and 'definitive' analysis of the facts surrounding the big-hearted horse's controversial and shocking death on the 6th of April, 1932 (even then Prime Minister Joseph Lyons made public note of what he called a great sporting tragedy).
Phar Lap the book is a beautiful work by any standard - as befits its subject's stature and bearing.
Recommended for anyone with a more-than-passing fancy for horses, sporting heroes or Australian culture - those with a passion for all three will be rapt.
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