Killing Phar Lap: An Untold Part of the Story

By BIFF LOWRY

Innumerable books, articles and a full length motion picture have been written and produced about the almost unbelievable career of the magnificent race horse Phar Lap and his mysterious death.

Many experts have proclaimed him to be the greatest ever.

This book corrects much of the misinformation surrounding his death and opens the door to further theorizing on how and why be died.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496902535

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© 2014 Biff Lowry. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 4/11/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0255-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0254-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-0253-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014906400

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Contents

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter FIfteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Sources

Interviews and Coversations

About the Author

To Dr. Jay C. Hansen, who provided most of the pertinent information regarding Phar Lap’s time at the Suzanne Perry Ranch in California, where he passed into equine immortality.

Prologue

As long as humans race horses for sport and glory and profit, the memory of a horse named Phar Lap will never die.

Bred, foaled, raised in New Zealand and raced in Australia, his life, his triumphs, his final victory in Tijuana, Mexico and his mysterious and untimely death in Atherton, California, USA, have been chronicled in numerous publications and on film.

This work is different in that it theorizes, despite numerous protestations to the contrary, that yes, the Yanks did poison Phar Lap, just as his constant companion, Tommy Woodcock, feared from the moment he set foot on North American soil.

Written by a career American race-tracker, with the assistance of a retired race-horse veterinarian who lived, as a young boy, on the farm where Phar Lap was taken after his arrival in America, and where he subsequently died, this book discloses important, hitherto unpublished information regarding conditions on the farm, its true ownership and how those items may well have played a vital role in Phar Lap’s death.

It also paints a picture of a crime-ridden nation during the 1920s and early 1930s in which gangsters and Mafia-connected mob families accumulated immense wealth despite a severe economic depression. It was a time during which desperate men would do almost anything for money. That atmosphere provided a back-drop for what happened to the greatest race horse the world has ever known.

Introduction

When noted American racing official, Francis Dunne, was asked the question, Who was the greatest race horse of them all? Man o’ War? Secretariat? Dunne smiled and said, Neither one. I saw Phar Lap!

Other American experts, such as jockeys Eddie Arcaro and George Woolf, were just as lavish in their praise of the great horse after seeing him in just one race – the 1932 $50,000 Agua Caliente Handicap in Tijuana, Mexico, which he won easily in track record time, while carrying top weight, giving away as much as 39 pounds to the horse who finished fourth.

He did all this while racing extremely wide almost the entire mile and one-quarter journey to avoid trouble. And — oh yes — he was nursing an injured foot at the time, which almost prevented him from making it to the race.

Marshall Cassidy, later to become the dean of American racing officials, was the official starter of that memorable race at Agua Caliente. Later in life he said simply, Phar Lap is the greatest horse I ever saw. And he saw a lot of great horses throughout a long and distinguished career.

When Phar Lap arrived at Caliente in 1932, famed Charlie Whittingham was a jockey’s agent. He later became one of North America’s premier trainers and conditioned innumerable great horses. Whittingham said, I never got to see Man o’ War, but it would take one helluva horse to beat Phar Lap.

An incredible amount of information – and misinformation – has been written and spoken on the almost unbelievable career of Phar Lap, known by various nick names as ‘Big Red,’ ‘The Red Terror,’ ‘The Wonder from Down Under,’ ‘The Anzac Antelope,’ among others. Around the barn he was simply called, ‘Bobby,’ by those who handled him.

His career in Australia has been well chronicled in numerous other works. This book will concentrate primarily on his all-too-short stay in North America. It sheds new light on his death while advancing an intriguing, never-before discussed theory on how and why it may have happened. It unveils some heretofore unpublished facts surrounding the Phar Lap controversy and the horse farm at which he died. It also rekindles the fire that money, greed, pride and jealousy were behind the killing of a magnificent horse.

So, yes, Australia, the Yanks killed Phar Lap.

At least that’s the opinion of one American career race-tracker, whose involvement in the sport spans eight decades.

Chapter One

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He was a louse.

That was one horse trainer’s opinion of Ed Perry, who has been portrayed in innumerable books and news articles written about the champion Australian race horse Phar Lap as a ‘wealthy California rancher.’

Perry passed himself off to journalists and anyone else who was looking into the mysterious death of Phar Lap, as the owner of the California ranch at which the great race horse was stabled during his ill-fated journey from his homeland to the North American continent. It was there that Phar Lap died on April 5, 1932, just two weeks after his phenomenal victory in the rich Agua Caliente Handicap.

The end came somewhat suddenly with Phar Lap writhing in agony from a massive dose of arsenic.

Ed Perry was hardly the owner of the ranch and he certainly wasn’t wealthy – in his own right. He was, originally, the chauffeur for the lady who owned the land and re-developed it into a show-place horse farm and training center for her racing stable of harness horses.

Perry, the chauffeur, was some 30 years younger than his boss, a lady named Suzanne Kohn. Suzanne had inherited something like $10 million, a sizable fortune in ‘Roaring Twenties’ currency, from her late husband. She used a portion of the money to refurbish her horse farm and put together a potent racing stable of trotters and pacers, which competed primarily on the California Fair Circuit.

Somehow, someway Perry, the chauffeur, it has been reported, weaseled his way into the affections of his lonely, widowed employer and they were married in Hollywood during late May in 1920.

Going from hired hand to the husband of a multi-millionaire-heiress was apparently not a difficult transition for Ed Perry, according to Suzanne Kohn’s farm manager and horse trainer, Clarence Hansen, who was the horseman who labeled Perry a louse.

Hansen obviously did not hold Perry in high regard, considering him an opportunistic, fortune-hunting, con man who feigned an interest in Suzanne’s horses. Perry’s real interest, Hansen was positive, was in his new wife’s more than substantial bank account.

Phar Lap, even though his almost unbelievable feats on Australia’s race tracks occurred some eight decades ago, remains firmly implanted as one of the greatest sports heroes in Australia’s and New Zealand’s rich sporting history.

His death, following his journey across the Pacific Ocean to the North American continent, has been shrouded in mystery, intrigue, conflicting theories, misinformation and innuendoes for decades. Various experts have clashed over the cause of Phar Lap’s demise.

But no one, until now, has ever taken the trouble to investigate the role that Ed Perry may or may not have played in the death of a magnificent champion, the greatest race horse – in the opinion of many experts – that ever lived.

All the principals in the case are long dead and what they knew about Phar Lap’s passing has gone to the grave with them – with the single exception of Dr. Jay C. Hansen, a retired equine veterinarian and fourth generation horseman.

Dr. Hansen, even though he was just in grade school at the time, remembers well the events surrounding Phar Lap’s stay at Suzanne Perry’s ranch in Atherton, located on the San Mateo Peninsula in California’s San Francisco Bay area. He also has a crystal clear recollection of what his father told him about Phar Lap, his handlers, their fears about traveling to two foreign countries – and especially about Ed Perry.

Chapter Two

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Reams of paper have been used to contain the writings about the almost unbelievable career of Phar Lap. That career, in Australia, has been well-chronicled in numerous other works. This book covers the final