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PHAR LAP IN FINE FORM Australian Champion Beported in Excellent Fettle for Agua Caliente Handicap. AGUA CALIENTE, Mexico, March 11. Phut Lap went for a short speed sharpener Sunday. Tho Australian champion came down off the hill shortly before 6 oclock. Without preliminaries Phar Lap went to the five-eighths ground, where he broke running. Tho dockets, who have spent the last two nights at Agua Caliente to check Phar Laps actions, were almost caught unawares, it all happened so quickly. Picking up the glasses they found W. Elliott, his Australian jockey, in the saddle instead of W. Martin, the exercising boy who always gallops him. Phar Lap began sluggishly. His first quarter was timed by three watches in :25Vs. Then he picked up momentum. The second quarter was recorded in :23, extended through this period of the gallop on the turn. Elliott then took a hard hold and he galloped to tho finish line at the same pace. The experts got a good line on Phar Laps condition Sunday. After a conference they agreed he is fit and ready to start. They reported he wore very heavy plates. They will bo replaced by lighter shoes on Agua Caliente Handicap day. There was no way of determining the weight he carried. Elliott may have had a heavy Australian jacket beneath his blouse. The stable has a number of such jackets. One was loaned to jockey Lafoy Cunningham Saturday when that boy rode Big Bill Thompson. It weighed twenty-five pounds and had lead pockets sufficiently large to take at least that much more weight. The dockers agreed Phar Lap could just as well have had 1G0 pounds today and probably carried some such burden when Elliott piloted him. From todays work dockers judge Phar Lap a horse that requires at least a. quarter of a mile before he gathers racing speed. This checks with opinions offered by Australian critics, who have seen him in action.
