Cultural Impact
Following his death, Phar Lap's heart was donated to the Institute of Anatomy in Canberra and his skeleton to the New Zealand's National Museum in Wellington. After preparations of the hide by a New York City taxidermist, his stuffed body was placed in the Australia Gallery at Melbourne Museum. The hide and the skeleton were put on exhibition together when Wellington's Te Papa Museum lent the skeleton to the Melbourne Museum in September 2010 as part of celebrations for the 150th running of the 2010 Melbourne Cup.
Phar Lap's heart was remarkable for its size, weighing 6.2 kg (13.6 lbs), compared with a normal horse's heart at 3.2 kg. Now held at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra, it is the object visitors most often request to see. Several books and films have featured Phar Lap, including the 1983 film Phar Lap, and the song "Phar Lap—Farewell To You".
Phar Lap was one of five inaugural inductees into both the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame. In the Blood-Horse magazine ranking of the Top 100 U.S. Thoroughbred champions of the 20th century, Phar Lap was ranked No. 22.
The horse is considered to be a national icon in both Australia and New Zealand. In 1978 he was honoured on a postage stamp issued by Australia Post and features in the Australian citizenship test. A $500,000 life-sized bronze memorial to Phar Lap was unveiled on 25 November 2009 near his birthplace at Timaru.
Phar Lap Software, Inc. was named after the horse.
Read more about this topic: Phar Lap
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or impact:
“If we can learn ... to look at the ways in which various groups appropriate and use the mass-produced art of our culture ... we may well begin to understand that although the ideological power of contemporary cultural forms is enormous, indeed sometimes even frightening, that power is not yet all-pervasive, totally vigilant, or complete.”
—Janice A. Radway (b. 1949)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)