Phar Lap Skeleton Ready For Vic Trip

Tuesday, 07 September 2010 05:15

The skeleton of famed racehorse Phar Lap will leave New Zealand next week for a four-month visit to Melbourne as part of celebrations for the 150th running of the Melbourne Cup.

The skeleton, which will be travelling overseas for the first time since it arrived in New Zealand 1933, is leaving Wellington on Monday, September 13.

"It is currently packed in two custom-built crates, and ready to go," Museum of New Zealand spokeswoman Jane Keig told NZPA on Tuesday.

The NZ museum, also known as Te Papa, earlier this year agreed to loan Phar Lap's skeleton to the Melbourne Museum, which holds his mounted hide.

The skeleton of the 1930 Melbourne Cup winner will go on display as part of the celebrations to mark the 150th running of the race early in November, in an exhibition due to open on September 16.

Victoria Racing Minister Rob Hulls - who also unsuccessfully tried to get the National Museum of Australia in Canberra to loan Phar Lap's heart for the show - was due to thank workers at Te Papa on Tuesday afternoon.

Hulls asked the NZ museum for the skeleton and its steel framework last Easter, and in June remedial work was carried out because the framework supporting Phar Lap's head and neck had gradually slumped since the bones were first mounted.

The skeleton will be returned to Te Papa at the end of January and will be back on display by March, Keig said.

Phar Lap was foaled in New Zealand and raced in Australia.

He was born in 1926 and died in America in 1932 from a sudden mystery illness that was suspected to be accidental arsenic poisoning.

His owners donated his hide and heart to Australia and the skeleton to New Zealand.