Phar Lap

Phar Lap was a colt born in New Zealand that nobody expected anything from. He was taken to Australia, grew up in the hands of his strapper Tommy Woodcock, and became the most talked about horse in the country during the Depression years of the thirties. He won thirty seven of fifty one races. Betting interests put pressure on to stop him. In 1932, shortly after winning a large race in Mexico, he died in America. Simon Wincer's Australian film tells the horse's story through the bond between him and his strapper. Tom Burlinson plays Woodcock. The cause of death was argued over for many years; a hair analysis carried out in 2010 confirmed arsenic poisoning, but how the arsenic got into him is still unknown: deliberate poisoning, an overdose of the arsenic tonics common at the time, or contaminated feed, no one can say.