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Auction Location:
Melbourne
Date:
23-Apr-2008
Lot No.
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Description:
Phar Lap - Harry Telford's Horse-Tonic Recipe Book An 82pp notebook (lacking covers) with manuscript recipes for tonics and ointments for racehorses, with 28 recipes in Harry Telford's hand, and another two added by Ernie Fellows. Ingredients include arsenic, strychnine, belladonna, cocaine and caffeine. Notebook with some wear, and first page has been reinserted after page 12, the legendary Australian race horse, 'Phar Lap' was trained by Harry Telford. He won 37 races from 51 starts, including fourteen wins in a row. His successes included the 1930 Melbourne Cup in which he carried 9 stone 12 lbs. Already the most famous horse in Australia, Phar Lap went to America in 1932, won one race but then died, apparently of poisoning. Tommy Woodcock, his trainer/strapper at the time, admitted on his death bed that he thought Phar Lap died as a result of being given too much of a particular tonic which included arsenic. This original notebook gives unequivocal evidence that arsenic and other 'Poisons' were used in the management of race-horses under Telford's care.
Estimate:
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Price:
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Category:
Memorabilia: Sporting - Horses