Phar Lap’s Rise To Fame Was Sudden

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 786, 5 October 1929, Page 15

Phar Lap’s Rise To Fame Was Sudden

TRAINER’S CHANGE OF LUCK A MODERATE TWO-YEAR-OLD By winning the A.J.C. Derby Phar Lap would not make racing history for rapidity of improvement, but such a win would provide the first case in many years where the Derby winner was handled by a trainer outside the really successful few, comments a Sydney scribe. H. R. Telford trains at Kensington, and he has never been successful out of his turn, and to win the Derby with a horse he owns as well as trains would be a marked rise for him. Last season Telford was only 53rd on the metropolitan winning list with three wins, but a Derby win would attract such attention to him that he might nevea look back. Certain it is that he would receive greater recognition from big owners, for most prominent racing men, perhaps unconsciously, follow success and ignore the man whose luck has temporarily vanished. No Early Hopes It would be a change to see a classic race won by a man who trains in a moderate way, for too monotonously do the big prizes go to the men who really do not need the money. The potential rise in fortune for Telford is probably all the more welcome to him because there have been no great building up of hopes until the last few weeks. There was no justification, for as a two-year-old Phar Lap was a moderate performer with no prospects of ever getting past very ordinary handicap company. It was not until after the Warwick Stakes that Telford entertained hopes of possessing a champion. Prior to that race he told friends that he was running the colt merely to get an idea whether from a Derby viewpoint it was worth while persevering, so the fast-finishing fourth then must have provided an extensive, if welcome, surprise. How Horses Improve Phar Lap’s rapid rise is another indication that the extreme confidence that prompts owners of hundreds of poor horses to enter for the big spring events is not always misplaced. Year after year it has been shown what added maturity can do to a three-year-old. This year it was Phar Lap who made the miraculous improvement that has carried him to Derby favouritism and equal fancy for the Melbourne Cup (for which he is to be scratched). But it might have been any one of the scores and scores of tliree-year-olds who, let alone start in Australia’s biggest race, might never win a race in any company with minimum weight.