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f PHAR LAP PRESERVED By SALVATOR ... Nothing that has happened recently in the turf world was more interesting and, in its own way, unique, than the reappearance of Phar Lap before the public "in his habit as he lived" barring only the breath of life and the power of movement which its possession bestows. When a swifter steed, even, than himself, ridden by a master of the reins with whom no other can compete, overtook him last spring on the morrow of his triumph at Agua Caliente, it was taken for granted that he has passed forever from our ken. But modern taxidermy has restored him to view and in a guise so natural that he seems literally to have risen from the dead to stand before us. Thus, in death as in life, Phar Lap has been and is the record-breaker. For, while many horses have, in time past, been mounted and preserved by the same, or a similar method, he is the first and thus far the only one that has revisited the race course and there once again challenged the attention and admiration of a crowded grandstand and, vicariously, of the entire public, .he world around. The account published in Daily Racing Form of the precise manner in which this result was effected makes, to me, absorbing reading; for the photos of the "recreated" gelding are to all appearance impossible to distinguish from those of living equines. If Phar Lap, in this guise, is taken on tour, as it has been proposed, he will undoubtedly be a great attraction wherever exhibited. To many there may seem something a bit gruesome about the undertaking, but those not ultra-sensitive will not regard it in that light. On the contrary, the opportunity will partake almost of the scientific in the materials it provides for study. CLASSIC EPITAPH DOES NOT APPLY. Of course, it does remain to be said that suh a procedure in some cases might smack of desecration. That the quaint epitaph which Shakespeare caused to be inscribed upon his tombstone, invoking a curse upon whoever "moves these bones," might well up-ply in the cases of horses of great fame and honor which, after "finishing the course," are entitled to return to the bosom of that Mother Earth from which they sprang and there rest in peace until their ashes mingle with the soil in which they sleep, beneath the turf emblematic of their "reason for existence." The stuffing and mounting of human beings is something from which all races of men except a few barbarous tribes of savages shudder away in horror. The nearest approach to this which civilization has permitted has been various processes of embalming or mummification, intended, however, for the commitment to the tomb and nothing else we may except the public exhibition of the remains of Lenin in Moscow, as one of those incidents transgressing human nature and being, in a effect to return to barbarism for political effect. BENEFIT TO POSTERITY. And horses are so nearly human that those of us who love the beauty and poetry of the thoroughbred and regard him as something beside a living device for the gratification of the innate human propensities of greed or advertising purposes, will prefer, in all probability, to think of their favorites slumbering undisturbed in some grassy spot where the skies arch their rest and blossoms star it, above which birds and butterflies may hover. One calls to mind, as evidence of this, those lines of haunting beauty which that gifted if erratic genius, "Hyder Ali" R. L. Cary, Jr., indited on the grave of Lexington. Yet the bones of that immortal progenitor never reposed there, for after his death they were removed from his body and sent to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, where, it is understood, they have ever since been preserved, along with those of several other famous American horses of former days. That, however, ------- - docs not affect either the poetic or the sentimental value of "Dick" Carys verses, which were an inspiration of pure emotion, rendering them twice beautiful. However, for the benefit of posterity, and for the scientific biological purposes, how wonderful it would be if taxidermy had been as highly perfected several centuries ago as it is in the case of Phar Laps preservation, and had been exercised in turn upon the great historic progenitors of the thoroughbred breed, so that they could be studied and compared by horsemen of succeeding generations down to today! What an extraordinary means of instruction and enlightenment we would have! How priceless a collection of data to draw upon and interpret! PICTURES DO NOT BRIDGE GAP Remember that, with the exception of modern photography, which has provided us with the best and most realistic "documents" we possess, we can form no true ideas of more than a few of these animals from the "counterfeat presentments" that exist. While sometimes exquisite works of art, and carrying conviction that we see the subject substantially as he was in the flash as in the cases of Stubbs portraits of Eclipse and Diomed, a few others in the English "gallery," together with the best of Troyes efforts here in America, for the most part they are so idealized, and either wilfully or innocently falsified, that could the living horses be led out before us, they would be forever put aside as nothing but "pictures" beautiful as such, but as portraits of little worth. Suppose, however, .we could have in some great museum, ranged along in regular rotation, in the form that Phar Lap has now assumed, the following lines of sires: Darley Arabian, Bartletts Childers, Squirt, Marske, Eclipse, Pot-8-os, Waxy, Whalebone, Sir Hercules, Irish Birdcatcher, The Baron, Stockwell, Don caster, Bend Or, Ormonde, Orme, Ajax with the living Teddy, Sir Gal-lahad, Gallant Fox, here in America to add to the exhibit. Godolphin Arabian, Cade, Matchem, Conductor, Trumpator, Sorcerer, Comus, Humphry Clinker, Melbourne, West Australian, Australian, Spendthrift, Hastings, Fair Play with the living Man o War, American Flag, Gusto, to complete the chain. Beverley, Turk, Jigg Partner, Tartar, Herod, Woodpecker, Buzzard, Selim, Sultan, Glencoe, Vandal, Virgil, Hindoo, Hanover, Blackstock, Mentor and the living Wise Counsellor; or Byerley Turk, Jigg Partner, Tartar, Herod, Florizel, Diomed, Sir Archy, Timoleon, Boston, Lexington, Norfolk, Emporer of Norfolk, Cruzados and the living Lantados. OTHER SIMILAR POSSD3DLITD3S. With other similar possibilities, including the individuals in the lines of St. Simon, Hampton and Isonomy; that from Herod coming through Roi Herode and The Tet-rarch; that from Galopin through Speculum and on down to Sun Rriar and Sun Beau; that from Whalebone that gave us Bonnie Scotland, Bramble, Ben Brush and Broomstick; and that from imported Eclipse that has Himyar, Domino, Commando, Peter Pan, Pennant and culminated in the hero of today, Equipoise. It would require only about one hundred individuals, that epochal ones of the centuries, to comprise such a collection. Were it extant, how much wrangling and theorizing, mistaken generalization and dogmatic fallacy, would be at once and forever eliminated from the "breeding problem" how much more certainty and genuine knowledge injected into it! And idle fantasy? Perhaps. Yet one which, if acted upon, would place the breeders and horse lovers of two centuries hence in the position, which we of today can never occupy.
