8th February: Shergar

On this date 1983 The Derby winner Shergar was kidnapped in Ireland and a £2 million ransom was demanded. The Horse was never seen again. Unless you count the numerous sightings quoted around that time of Elvis riding him!

1. Shergar was a bay horse with a broad White blaze, born in County Kildare, Ireland. His sire was a British horse called Great Nephew, and his dam was called Sharmeen.
2. He was owned by the Aga Khan, who later sold most of his share in the horse so Shergar was owned by a syndicate of several people including bloodstock millionaire John Magnier and Shergar's vet Stan Cosgrove.
3. As a three year old, Shergar made his debut in Guardian Classic Trial at Sandown Park in 1981. He won by ten lengths and was immediately tipped as a possible Derby winner. He went on to win the Irish Derby by four lengths and the Epsom Derby by ten - the longest winning margin in the race's history.
4. Despite all this, Shergar had a very short racing career. After finishing fourth in the St. Leger Stakes at Doncaster in October 1981, his jockey, Lester Piggott, commented that Shergar "must have been over the top by then". So one off day, and that was it. After six wins and £436,000 in prize money, Shergar was retired from racing.
5. Shergar was a national hero in Ireland and when he arrived in Newbridge after retiring from racing he was greeted by the town band and children dressed up in his racing colours (Green and Red) and waving flags. Even the Aga Khan himself showed up to welcome him home.
6. Shergar's next career was as a stud stallion. To get your mare pregnant by Shergar would have set you back £50,000 - £80,000. Had Shergar lived to see his offspring do well the syndicate would have been able to charge twice that. Shergar produced 35 foals from his single season at stud, but none of them had actually been born when their sire disappeared. Had he not been stolen, there were 55 mares lined up for him in the next stud season.
7. On 8 February 1983, thieves showed up at the stud farm with a horse box. Thieves in police uniforms and balaclavas forced their way into the groom's house and held the family at gunpoint. James Fitzgerald, the groom, was forced to help the thieves load Shergar into the trailer and then to get into another car and was driven around for three hours. They gave him a password to use for negotiations and then dumped him 7 miles (11 km) from the stud. According to Fitzgerald, the thieves were exceptionally calm and well organized and referred to each other as Cresswell.
8. When he was able to, Fitzgerald called his manager, who called the vet, who called an associate, who called the Irish Finance Minister who gave them a number for the Minister for Justice. It was eight hours before anyone called the police. Not only that, the thieves had chosen to act on the day of the biggest Irish horse sales, so there would have been hundreds of horse boxes on the roads. Chief Superintendent Jim "Spud" Murphy was put in charge of the case. He was famous for wearing a trilby and being somewhat unconventional in his methods, including consulting psychics and clairvoyants about the case.
9. So who did it? Nobody really knows, of course. However, the prime suspects are the IRA. This is who Shergar's owners blamed for the crime, the motive being to raise Money for arms from a rich owner (they hadn't realised the Aga Khan had sold most of his share) and thought that taking an animal would cause less of a public outcry than kidnapping a person. Syndicate member Sir John Astor said that, while they would negotiate, they never intended to pay the ransom as this would have put every other racehorse at risk. The IRA have never officially claimed responsibility.
10. What happened to Shergar? Again nobody knows, but according to claims made by Sean O'Callaghan, the IRA supergrass, it wouldn't have been a happy ending. He guesses that the thieves, not used to handling highly strung horses, got frightened when the horse panicked. He thinks Shergar probably injured himself in the horse box and was therefore shot and buried in an unmarked grave mountains near Ballinamore, County Leitrim.

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