When you drive through Timaru’s CBD, you probably don’t stop to think that these streets were once dominated by hooves, horses and carts, rather than cars... I hadn’t really thought about it either.
A few months ago I was chatting with Tim Black, behind Black & Co, Tuesday and Hector Black’s, when he made me realise just how important horses were to Timaru’s early CBD, and how we can still see the impact of horsepower more than a century later.
The idea of creating a horse-themed scavenger hunt had been brewing away for a while, and I’d made a few attempts to get one off the ground. So when Karen from The Exchange asked if I could lend a hand around the celebrations marking Phar Lap’s 100th birthday, I jumped at the chance.
It felt like the perfect excuse to do what I love: create something free, fun and meaningful, and hopefully bring lots of people into our CBD at the same time.
Then I heard that people were even flying into Timaru for the special race being held in Phar Lap’s honour.
That made me curious. Why is Phar Lap still such a drawcard 100 years after he was born? So I started digging... What began as research into Phar Lap quickly opened up a much bigger story about horses, horsepower and how Timaru worked. And that research has now become the Phar Lap Horse Hunt.