Mysterious horse death solved… 75 years later
I’ve always been a fan of forensics. Its amazing to me that we can discover cool stuff like this… even 75 years after the fact.
Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP)—Forensic scientists say champion Australian gelding Phar Lap died of arsenic poisoning, solving a mystery that has intrigued the horse racing world for more than 75 years.
Phar Lap won 37 of his 51 starts before his death in mysterious circumstances at Menlo Park in California in April 1932. Days before his death, he won Mexico’s Agua Caliente Handicap, which was then the richest horse race in North America.
Arsenic poisoning has long been suspected as the cause of Phar Lap’s death, but confirmation had been lacking until Thursday when researchers Dr. Ivan Kempson of the University of South Australia and Dermot Henry, manager of Natural Science Collections at Museum Victoria, released the findings of their forensic investigation.
Kempson took six hairs from Phar Lap’s mane and analyzed them at the Advanced Photon Source Synchrotron in Chicago, finding that in the 40 hours before Phar Lap’s death the horse had ingested a massive dose of arsenic.
Phar Lap’s mounted hide is on display at the Melbourne Museum, while his heart is kept at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.
“We can’t speculate where the arsenic came from, but it was easily accessible at the time,” Henry said.
Notebooks kept by Phar Lap’s handler Tommy Woodcock, obtained by Museum Victoria, show the horse was administered tonics and ointments containing both arsenic and strychnine. An accidental overdose has long been considered the likely cause of death.
As long as humans have raced horses they have always looked for some sort of unfair advantage to win. The effects on the animal were ignored as long as it made the horse run faster and longer.Doping continues today but the techniques are subtler and sometimes undetectable but the continuing injuries and deaths of horses on the race courses is obvious.
“Many blame danger of dirt tracks. California had ordered softer synthetic surfaces for every track because 154 horses had to be euthanized in the 2004-05 racing season. So many horses died on the Del Mar track that trainers called it a “killing field.”
“Essentially the only difference between horse racing and dog fighting is that the exploitation of horses by white people for profit is acceptable and the exploitation of dogs by black people for profit is unacceptable. Both are dirty, corrupt, and unrepentant sports that kill its athletes on a fairly regular basis.”
Source: http://snipurl.com/2mdlx
Comment by johnny b — Saturday, June 21, 2008 @ 10:26
The toll continues:
Yesterday at Churchill Downs 2 horses were destroyed after suffering injuries on the dirt track.
The AP reports “that thoroughbred racetracks in the U.S. reported more than three horse deaths a day last year and 5,000 since 2003, and the vast majority were put down after suffering devastating injuries on the track.”
Source: Yahoo News http://snipurl.com/2mxd9
Comment by johnny b — Sunday, June 22, 2008 @ 10:29