12 Phar Lap remains one of the most enduring and celebrated sporting legends in the world, preserved across museums and at racetracks on both sides of the Tasman. When Phar Lap died suddenly in Menlo Park, California, on 5 April 1932, the grief on both sides of the Tasman was immediate. He wasn’t just a successful racehorse – he’d become a genuine national symbol during the hardest years of the Great Depression, and neither Australia nor New Zealand was willing to let him simply disappear. What followed was an almost unheard-of decision for the era: rather than burying him, or preserving him in one piece for one institution, his remains were divided between three national collections, each taking a different part of the story. He has also been immortalised in bronze, honouring both the place of his birth and the place where he became a champion. Other tangible links to his story survive too, among them the float that famously carried him to his legendary Melbourne Cup win. By Celia Purdey WHERE PHAR LAP lives on...
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