13 PHAR LAP THE LEGEND LIVES ON ABOVE: Phar Lap's hide mounted by taxidermists the Jonas Brothers of New York in 1932, now resides in a glass case on display at the Melbourne Museum. (Image: Benjamin Healley/Museums Victoria) THE HIDE Melbourne Museum Phar Lap’s hide was sent to the Jonas Brothers taxidermy studio in New York, mounted onto a custom-built frame, and shipped back to Australia. It went on permanent display at what is now the Melbourne Museum in January 1933 and has barely left since – it remains one of the museum’s most visited exhibits more than 90 years later. This is the version of Phar Lap most Australians have actually stood in front of: full-sized, glossy chestnut coat, standing proud in a deliberate, showpiece pose. The museum has built on it over the decades with an extensive collection of race-day memorabilia – winning sashes, his training saddle, his racing shoes, even Harry Telford’s handwritten tonic notebook – that together tell the story around the horse, not just the horse itself. THE SKELETON Te Papa, Wellington, NZ Phar Lap may have made his name in Australia, but he was a New Zealander by birth, foaled near Timaru in 1926. His skeleton was returned across the Tasman and now sits in the collection of Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand’s national museum in Wellington. It is an acknowledgement that, however Australian his legend became, his story starts and, in a sense, ends at home. In 2010, for the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup, Te Papa loaned the skeleton back to Melbourne so it could be displayed alongside the hide for the first time.
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