Famous Phar LapFamous Phar Lap stories from the legend’s closest
This October, South Canterbury honours legendary racehorse Phar Lap on his 100th birthday, who was born in Seadown near Timaru. Ahead of the celebrations, Metropol editor Nina Tucker catches up with Wayne Hinchliffe, a dear family friend of strapper Tommy Woodcock and one of his closest confidantes.
Phar Lap was one of the world’s most successful racehorses, winning 37 of his 51 races during the height of the Great Depression. Beyond being an animal hero and symbol of hope for millions during dark days, he played a special part in the lives of strapper Tommy Woodcock, and Australian Wayne Hinchliffe – a man who came to learn a lot about the legend in Tommy’s final years. Today, Wayne is one of the only people with the truth about what Phar Lap’s life was really like.
When Tommy was diagnosed with cancer, Wayne took him under his care – returning a kindness the famous strapper had offered Wayne in his younger days. “My dad and him were the very best of mates,” Wayne says. “He said to me, oh Wayne, I don’t want to die here. Can I come home with you?” So Wayne nursed him on his family farm in Yarrawonga, Victoria. “It’s in that period he really opened up about Phar Lap to me. He’d already given me all of Phar Lap’s things.”
Because of their fame, Phar Lap and Tommy were often the subject of hungry journalists on the hunt for a story. However, as Wayne remembers, much of the information out there, about Phar Lap, including a book referenced from hundreds of such newspaper cuttings, are false. “Every week, [the newspapers] would have a story about Phar Lap. They’d sell out immediately. They told a lot of lies because they didn’t have a story,” Wayne says. Those close to Phar Lap, like Tommy, learned how to deal with the media. “He didn’t tell them lies as such, but he told them untruths. The journalists, they weren’t horse people, and they just didn’t have a clue. So he could tell them whatever he wanted to.”
A joke that Tommy would sleep with horses before a big race became a famous image in racehorse history – that of him lying next to horse Reckless in the stables the night before the Melbourne Cup, where Reckless came second.
Phar Lap: a legend that lives on “Tommy bought all of the gear, all the rugs and leads and headstalls, travelling rug, travelling boots. He bought everything out of his own money, and he bought two of everything. The owner is supposed to buy all that, but the owner was a bit miserable and wouldn’t cough up.” Memorabilia has become so valuable – one race book costs $30,000 to insure – that many items have been stolen over the years during exhibitions at Wayne’s house. “Everyone in Australia and New Zealand, they belong to them.”
With a museum-like collection of Phar Lap’s history, and some of the only true stories left engrained in his memory, Wayne has since dedicated his life to the celebration of Phar Lap and Tommy’s spirit.
Back home, Wayne and wife Maria run farm shows and open their farm for people to experience a slice of that traditional spirit – rodeo, whip cracking, poetry. Inspired by his uncles who did similar during the Second World War, Wayne turned to this alternative form of business when a drought dried everything up and they had to send stock away. “So instead of doing it for nothing, we started to get paid for it.
“A lot of people want to know, was Phar Lap really as good as everyone says? And I say to them, there’s only two horses in the history of racing who have done what we did. There was him and one of his ancestors called Carbine, who’s a really famous race horse,” Wayne explains.
“He was a real kind horse, soft and gentle.” Wayne doesn’t say the same for Phar Lap’s owners. “The people who owned him, they used to do a lot of really dishonest tricks. If Phar Lap had had honest people, he would’ve never been defeated.”
As for why Phar Lap never raced in New Zealand despite being born in Seadown, Timaru: the time it took to sail here by boat was too long for a fit, healthy horse. “It was almost two months travelling.”
For the 100th birthday celebrations at the Phar Lap Raceway in Timaru, Wayne presents a collection of memorabilia and shares stories never before known of the legendary horse.
Get your tickets to celebrate Phar Lap’s 100th birthday at the centennial feature race meeting on 4 October at Phar Lap Raceway, eventfinda.co.nz.
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Phar Lap facts
- Phar Lap was foaled on 4 October 1926. He was bred by A. F. Roberts at his Seadown Stud at Washdyke, near Timaru. He was bought for 160 guineas at the 1928 yearling sales, held at Trentham. His name, derived from the Zhuang and Thai word for lightning, was suggested by a medical student and modified by his trainer Harry Telford. Phar Lap was affectionately called ‘Bobby’ by his strapper Tommy Woodcock and earned nicknames like ‘The Red Terror’.
- Between September 1929 and November 1931, he ran in 51 races, winning 37, including the 1930 Melbourne Cup, two Cox Plates, the Australian Derby, and numerous other weight-for-age races. His victories were often decisive, sometimes by several lengths, and he became a symbol of hope during the Great Depression, inspiring the Australian public. Phar Lap died suddenly on 5 April 1932 in Menlo Park, California, under mysterious circumstances.
- His large heart, weighing 6.3 kilograms, is preserved at the National Museum of Australia, while his skeleton is displayed in Wellington,
New Zealand, and his mounted hide is at the Melbourne Museum.
