The remarkable and harrowing story of Shergar - a Derby record, a £10 million stallion, a killing nobody was ever held to account for

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Ahead of the Ascot raceday named in his honour on Saturday, this is the remarkable tale of one of racing's greatest equine talents and worst tragedies . . .

The Shergar story began with brilliance, the Sir Michael Stoute-trained middle-distance great's legendary three-year-old season featuring a Sandown Classic Trial victory by ten lengths, the Chester Vase by 12, the Derby by ten, and the Irish Derby and King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes both by four.

Carrying the Aga Khan's silks, Shergar conquered all in his Classic season, the repeat wide-margin destructions of a generation of middle-distance rivals guaranteeing him a place in the history books. His ten-length win at Epsom Downs, with Walter Swinburn riding, remains the widest-margin Derby win in the race's nearly 250-year history and there are many who would have the horse as the best Derby winner full stop.

Shergar and Walter Swinburn become the widest-margin Derby winners in the race's historyCredit: Mark Cranham

A final-race defeat in the St Leger did little to hamper Shergar's astronomical stud value — £10 million the figure touted, at £250,000 per share — and there were breeders, business folk and the greatest minds in racing queueing up for a piece of the action during his only season as a stallion in 1982.

As the Racing Post's Ireland editor Richard Forristal summarised in a feature back in 2020: "He was the £10 million blueblood, a sensational specimen whose ten-length rout of his Epsom opposition is to this day the single most dominant performance in the sport's most prestigious Classic. Conveniently for the retrospective narrative, Shergar was something close to the perfect horse, a magnificent embodiment of what two and a half centuries of selective breeding had sought to achieve."

• 'Now is the time to bet like men' - how Shergar made a lot of people very rich 

There was a dark, harrowing twist to come, however, as on Tuesday, February 8, 1983, Shergar was kidnapped from Ballymany Stud, next to the Curragh racecourse in County Kildare.

Years of rumours and speculation followed as the initial criminal investigation into Shergar's abduction was, throughout the four decades since, replaced by repeated recounting of the tale in popular culture, film, TV and literature, a crime mystery that transcended the sport of horseracing.

The IRA was the main suspect and it has been theorised the abductors were not suitably equipped to control a thoroughbred once it was in their possession. It was generally accepted he was killed shortly after and his remains have never been found, a horrific injustice for which nobody has ever been held accountable.

Some light was shone on the mystery as Princess Zahra, the daughter of the Aga Khan, recently explained Shergar was killed "in an awful way" and the ransom demand was never paid to avoid money potentially being "used against human beings". 

Princess Zahra said: "We now know the horse was killed within two days [of being taken]. Dad was so upset, there was great disbelief. People didn't understand the horse was syndicated and the ransom demand was only for 10 per cent of his stud value.

"I remember dad saying over and over, not only was the horse not insured against kidnapping – because who the hell was going to think of kidnapping a horse – but because the horse was syndicated he couldn't get everyone to agree on what to do. He also argued that even if he could pay the ransom, he couldn't do so if [the money] was going to be used against human beings."

Shergar topped off a momentous summer with victory in the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth StakesCredit: Mark Cranham

Princess Zahra was 12 at the time of the kidnapping and elaborated further on Shergar's final moments.

She said: "It was very unprofessionally done, and when they finally killed him they did so in an awful way. The horse didn't deserve that. Even as a stallion he was the kindest horse in the world, he was so unfairly treated. And why? He was a national symbol of Irish breeding and racing. It's a long time ago, it was a very different world and people had different motivations back then."

It is to all the context above that just before the turn of the millennium the Aga Khan commemorated his great champion with the cup that still bears Shergar's name, and this Saturday will again be raced for at Ascot.

Read more...

'Now is the time to bet like men' - how Shergar made a lot of people very rich 

Shergar and the £2m ransom: Princess Zahra takes us inside the difficult discussions over whether to pay the kidnappers 

Stan Cosgrove: Shergar kidnap marked a sad chapter in a wonderful life  

From Shergar to Zarkava: six of the best horses owned by the Aga Khan

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