Phar Lap’s heart – all 6.35 kg of it. Photo: National Museum of Australia.
The enormous heart of Australia’s most famous racehorse is back on display at the National Museum of Australia after a two-year absence.
If Phar Lap didn’t make history for winning 37 of 51 races, including the 1930 Melbourne Cup, the organ pumping all that energy around his body certainly did.
Phar Lap’s heart weighed 6.35 kg, or more than 1.5 times the weight of an average thoroughbred racehorse heart (3 to 4 kg) – enough for it to be returned to Australia after his death in the US in 1932, and deemed by our scientists to be of “unusually large size”.
His hide went to the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne and his skeleton to the National Museum of New Zealand in Wellington, but Phar Lap’s heart is now considered “one of the icons of the National Museum’s collection”.
But it’s been off limits to the public for the past two years due to renovation work at the museum.
‘Landmarks’ is one of the museum’s three permanent galleries and covers the “moments and objects that help define the Australian nation … from the encounters between this continent’s First Nations peoples and those on board the Endeavour, through to COVID-19 and Climate Strikes”.
Senior curator Craig Middleton says the updates “bring the stories told in this gallery right up to the present day” – even if it’s been “greatly missed” in the meantime.
“It connects deeply with Australian audiences,” he says.
“Not only that, but it links strongly to the Australian curriculum, and we expect teachers and school students from across the country will be very happy to be able to explore it once again.”
The Holden Prototype No 1 is on display in the revamped Landmarks gallery. Photo: NMA.
In addition to Phar Lap’s heart, another popular item to return to the space is Holden Prototype No 1 – the predecessor to Australia’s first car, and the very one secretly shipped from the General Motors factory in Detroit to Australia for local testing.
“We have taken the opportunity through the refresh to put on display objects recently acquired by the museum, including Joshua Cavallo’s Pride Round Jersey,” Mr Middleton adds.
“Cavallo, at the age of 21, came out as a gay man on social media, becoming the first person in the world playing A-League football to do so, and inspiring a wave of inclusivity and change in a traditionally masculine arena.”
Another new acquisition is a brightly decorated car bonnet, part of an art competition run in the remote First Nations community Ltyentye Apurte in the Northern Territory.
“The bonnet communicates COVID public health messaging in the Eastern Arrernte language, ensuring the youngest people in the community remembered to wash their hands and keep safe during the global pandemic.
“The bonnet was displayed in public spaces in the community, and fragments of red dirt have been presented on the bonnet, where it was staked into the ground.”
These theatre seats represent a different time in Australia’s race relations. Photo: NMA.
Elsewhere in the gallery is “a challenging story, but an extremely important one” in the form of two rows of seats from the Ray-Mond Theatre in the regional NSW town of Bowraville.
“The theatre was like many other cinemas in Australia in the 1950s and 60, where white Australians could sit comfortably in plush chairs, while Indigenous Australians would sit on bench-like seats.”
The National Museum of Australia is open daily, from 9 am to 5 pm, except Christmas Day. Entry to Landmarks is free.
