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I 17 HANDS— AND UPWARD * . By , .... SALVATOR. r _ ..... t r -■ ■» I have recently received a letter from a reader of Daily Racing Form in which he requests an answer through the columns of the paper. As the question he propounds is of general interest, I am glad to comply. He writes: "I have just been looking over a table of figures giving the heights of the most famous Australian race horses of the past f ew years. It was headed by Phar Lap, whose height was given as seventeen hands. "When Phar Lap visited this country and won the big race at Agua Caliente in 1932, I saw him perform. I was attending the meeting, and also saw him at other times, for, like everybody else, I was full of curiosity about this wonder horse that had been brought so far to show us Yankees what a real one looks like— and let me tell you, he sure was a real one, for he had everything. I was close to him several times and had a good chance to size him up; and if he was alive today Id be willing to bet a fair amount of money that he was not seventeen hands high. My guess would be about sixteen and one-half hands, and certainly not more than that. Do you happen to know his exact height? If so, will you state it in Daily [ Racing Form, for Ive had several arguments about it. "L. SEVERANCE." QUERY ANSWERED. In answer to the query of Mr. Severance it may be stated that Phar Lap was at the height of his fame Down Under about the time that Equipoise was here in the United States. Just after Equipoise ran his record mile in 1:34% at Arlington Park in 1932 I took a complete set of measurements of him, j being accorded the permission to do so by j Maj. Louie Beard, general manager of the Whitney racing and breeding interests. Subsequently they were published in several different American sports journals, appearing first in the Sportsman of Boston, from which they were copied by various other magazines and newspapers. Equipoise stood exactly 15.3% high. Owing to the great reputation which Equipoise attained, he received much attention in the foreign sports press, as well as here at home. Among other things, an Australian turf paper published his measurements and compared them with those of Phar Lap. In this article, of which a copy was sent me, the height of Phar Lap was given as 16.1%. It is to be assumed that these figures were correct and that instead of being 17 hands tall, he lacked 2% inches of being so. In casting about for an explanation of the giving of Phar Laps height as seventeen hands — which would make him the tallest horse of absolutely the first class of which we have record — it has occurred to me that this may have come about in the following manner: PHAR LAP MOUNTED. After his death in this country, as most horsemen will recall, an expert taxidermist was commissioned to stuff his skin and mount it exactly as it had been in life, which he did. After this had been done, the mounted result was exhibited in several different American cities and was then shipped back to Australia, where, it is stated, it was presented to one of the great museums and will henceforth remain there on permanent exhibition. Not impossibly the seventeen-hand figures for Phar Lap were arrived at from measuring his stuffed and mounted skin in the museum. It would have been very easy for the taxidermist to increase his height over what it had been in life to that extent, unintentionally and without any awareness of what he was doing — as will readily be perceived. As an example of what one might term "growth after death" in the case of a famous race horse, there is another notable case which is at once similar and different. The most renowned of all thoroughbreds, j j past, present or future, was Eclipse, the son of Marske, that was foaled in England in 1764 and died in 1789. He was never beaten in a race and then became by far the greatest progenitor ever known — there is not today a thoroughbred anywhere in the world that does not trace to him a bewildering number of times, for in the hundred and fifty years since his death his blood has been so consistently inbred that we encounter it in every pedigree at every turn. THE GREAT ECLIPSE. Owing to his immense fame, upon the death of Eclipse, his skeleton was carefully removed from his remains and given to the celebrated French veterinarian, Mons.-Charles Vial de St. Bel, who was then at the head of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, of London, who reassembled and mounted it and it can be seen today in the museum of that historic institution. After he had completed his work, Mons de St. Bel in 1791 brought out a book in which he gave a full description of the work he had done, with an atlas of plates illustrating it, finely engraved. It was entitled: "An Essay on the Geometrical Proportions of Eclipse" and is a classic volume today. As mounted by St. Bel, and as the skeleton stands today, Eclipse stood sixteen and a half hands tall at the withers and sixteen and three-quarters tall over the rump. MOUNTING CONTROVERSY. St. Bel died not long after the publication of his book, and at that time a heated discussion broke out regarding the correctness of his work. Those who had knov/n Eclipse as a living horse asserted that St. Bel had unwittingly increased the height of the horse in mounting his skeleton. It had been correctly done otherwise, for one of the most familiar points of Eclipse, when alive, was his greater height behind than forward. But as for his having been 16 1-2 hands at the withers and 16 3-4 at the coupling, that idea was scouted. Almost to a man those who were intimately familiar with the living Eclipse stated that he was not more than 15 3-4 hands at the withers or 16 hands at the coupling. To increase his height in the manner which St. Bel arrived at, in the mounted skeleton, the theory — doubtless correct — was advanced that the angles of the bones had been made more upright than was the case in life and owing to the large number of joints in the skeleton, it was easy, in that way, to add the extra inches. This is borne out by the fact that such a thing as a 16 1-2 to 16 3-4-hand race horse was unknown upon the English turf a century and a half ago. Eclipse would have appeared a veritable mastodon, a whale among minnows, not only in speed but in size, had he been that tall. However, he excited no such comment when living, being classed as no bigger than other famous stallions of that day. QUESTION OF MEASUREMENT. As suggested above, it is very likely that the 17-hand measurement of Phar Lap was obtained by applying the tape-line to his mounted frame. The figure of 16.1 1-4 hands taken from the living horse is doubtless the preferable one. It has been mentioned above that there is no instance of an absolutely first-class race horse that, carefully measured, by competent hands, stood 17 hands tall or more. We occasionally see racing, horses that reach or exceed 17 hands — but they are not the champions. A select few horses of the very first class have approximated 17 hands and have been loosely written and talked of as being even above that height, but under the tape-line they have failed to "make the grade." Nature, apparently, has ordained that this should be the case, having laid down the silent but final fiat: "Thus far and no farther."
