Sydney
Australia’s champion racehorse of the Depression era was poisoned, probably by American gangsters, scientists determined this week. Phar Lap, a chestnut gelding who was his country’s answer to Seabiscuit, dropped dead in 1932, just a few days after winning the Agua Caliente in Mexico. Phar Lap was seen as unbeatable at the time, and many people suspected that gangsters had poisoned him so that they could continue fixing races. A new analysis of one of the gelding’s hairs shows that he ingested a large amount of arsenic the day before he died. Phar Lap is still mourned throughout the region. His heart is in the National Museum in Canberra, his hide is on display at the Melbourne Museum, and his skeleton is in the Museum of New Zealand.
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