PHAR Lap's unmarked grave is being used as a high school junkyard in the US.

The stables on the former farm where our greatest racehorse died are filled with old bookshelves and general waste from Menlo Park School and Menlo Park College, south of San Francisco.

The Daily Telegraph toured the historic site, behind the Cartan Athletic Fields, and found it strewn with broken electronic gear, gardening equipment and a giant skip.

"Phar Lap has always been a special story to me and it's a shame these stables have not been preserved," Atherton Heritage Association president Marion Oster said.

The stables are all that remain of the ranch where the chestnut gelding collapsed in the arms of strapper Tommy Woodcock on April 5, 1932.

Phar Lap spent about a fortnight on the ranch, one of two properties owned by local horse enthusiast Ed Perry.

Parts of Phar Lap's organs were buried on one of Perry's properties, now residential estates and sports fields owned by Menlo Park School and Menlo Park College.

A spokesman for Menlo Park School said last night they would consider ways of keeping his memory alive.

The cause of Phar Lap's death was a mystery until 2006, when hi-tech scientific tests revealed he died from a large, single dose of arsenic administered between 30 and 40 hours before he died.

The horse's hide is on display in Melbourne and his skeleton, usually kept in his native New Zealand, has been sent to Melbourne for the 150- year Melbourne Cup celebrations. His heart is in Canberra at the National Museum.

The remains were said to have been buried in a metal box but their location remains a mystery, leaving the stables as the only reminder of Phar Lap's final resting place.

Originally published as Phar Lap's buried under school dumpster