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Shergar: 25 years on, the mystery that won't go away
Just what made the legendary racehorse Shergar a target for kidnappers 25 years ago? Tom Richmond reports.
WALTER Swinburn has heard every possible theory about the kidnapping of Shergar – horse racing's equivalent of the Lord Lucan mystery.
From the IRA to the American Mafia and Libya's Colonel Gaddafi, Swinburn has listened to hundreds of explanations. Some were plausible. Others had been concocted in bars by those who had drunk too much Guinness – or read too many Dick Francis novels.
Shergar's jockey is still none the wiser 25 years after Shergar's disappearance.
There is only one story that Irish-born Swinburn knows to be beyond dispute. And that is how, as a fresh-faced 18-year-old, he won flat racing's greatest prize – the Epsom Derby – by a record 10 lengths. Never had there been a more convincing winner in the race's illustrious 200-year history as Shergar – and the evocative green and red colours of his owner, the Aga Khan – earned their place in sporting immortality after turning the Epsom showpiece into a one-horse race.
"A great day," smiles the retired jockey who is now pursuing an increasingly successful career as a trainer. "Only the other day I heard Peter Bromley's radio commentary when he shouted: 'You need a telescope to see the rest'.
"To me, it was like a fairytale. Eighteen and winning The Derby. It doesn't normally happen like that.
"To be honest, anyone could have ridden Shergar. As we came round Tattenham Corner, I had to pinch myself. We were going that well. But, at Epsom, it's like riding through a tunnel of people.
"All I could hear was people shouting 'Come on Lester'. I panicked. I thought Lester Piggott was catching me. I'd put nothing past the old so and so, hence why I gave Shergar one slap. I always regretted it. I never had an easier winner. Shergar launched my career – and I will always be in his debt. A special horse. I'd love to have seen him one last time to say thanks."
Shergar's last race – the 1981 St Leger – ended in disappointing defeat on Town Moor, Doncaster. He hated the heavy ground.
Doncaster had not been a lucky track. Shergar's only other loss had come a year previously in the William Hill Futurity Stakes at the same track.
Nothing, however, could prepare Swinburn for the shock in February 1983 while on holiday in India, when he learned that the horse of his dreams had been kidnapped.
"I could not take it in. Not Shergar. Not in Ireland. The Irish love their horses. It couldn't be true, could it?"
An armed gang had pulled into the Aga Khan's Ballymany Stud, taken the staff hostage at gunpoint – and made off with the world's most famous racehorse.
In many respects, this was a kidnapping waiting to happen. For, even though Shergar's racing career was over, he was worth potentially tens of millions of pounds as a stallion at stud.
The syndicate set up by the Aga Khan could charge 80,000 a time for owners to have a colt or filly by Shergar. There were no shortage of takers. He "covered" 35 mares in his first season at stud – with another 55 booked for 1983. These were rich pickings.
Yet, amazingly, there were no security precautions at the stud. Not even a token CCTV camera. Just a five-bar wooden gate and a latch (left unlocked). No one considered horses grazing in a field to be at risk, especially one as famous, and as recognisable, as the imperious Derby winner with that distinct white blaze on his face.
And, when thick fog enveloped the County Kildare countryside, the kidnappers could strike with relative ease.
Such short-sightedness was the reason, according to supergrass Sean O'Callaghan, why Shergar became a prime target – and why he is adamant that IRA terrorists were behind such an audacious crime that proved so straight-forward to execute. The fact that the IRA have never admitted full responsibility adds another twist to this never-ending mystery.
The reason is clear, says O'Callaghan, speaking exclusively to the Yorkshire Post.
Shergar, he claims, was killed by the terrorists within hours of his kidnapping – after seriously injuring his leg while trying to escape the confines of a horsebox that had become the equivalent of a prison cell to a horse that loved the freedom of Ireland where he contentedly grazed.
"You have to understand the historical context," said O'Callaghan.
"The IRA was short of funds. Money was needed to buy firearms; surface-to-air missiles to shoot down the British helicopters flying over Northern Ireland.
"The modus operandi was to kidnap businessmen and supermarket managers. However, the tears of the kidnap victim's wives on TV, pleading for their loved one's safe return, were costing the Provisionals support.
"Then a cell thought: 'Why not kidnap Shergar?' The horse had no family to speak of. They were convinced that the Aga Khan would pay up. It couldn't go wrong. This was going to be a quick way to make money. Very quick. But, if they had thought about it, they would have realised that paying a ransom would have left the Aga Khan and the others open to all kinds of extortion threats. The money was a non-starter."
O'Callaghan says the IRA could have retrieved the situation if Shergar had been left by the side of the road when it became clear that a 2m ransom demand would not be paid. This was not possible. O'Callaghan said one of the kidnap gang was specifically recruited because he claimed to have worked with horses. However, he pointed out there was a world of difference between caring for a child's pony and a highly-strung racehorse.
"One of the gang suggested to me that Shergar was killed within hours. Shot dead. He went demented in the horsebox and badly injured his leg. They had to kill him because they couldn't call a vet. They had the most recognisable horse in the world on their hands," said O'Callaghan. "Total cock-up. From start to finish."
O'Callaghan's views carry weight. His knowledge of subsequent IRA kidnap plans after the Shergar fiasco, the taking hostage of Canadian businessman Galen Weston, meant Special Branch officers intercepted the terrorists as the plot was hatched. He deliberately foiled a bid in 1984 to blow up a London theatre being attended by the Prince and Princess of Wales. He escaped to Ireland, wanted by the British police, and was hailed a hero by Republican sympathisers. They did not know that he was an informer who would later admit to committing two murders in the 1970s.
As to the whereabouts of Shergar's remains, O'Callaghan believes the horse was buried in woodland wilderness near Ballinamore, County Lentrim, 100 miles from the Ballymany Stud.
The informer believes that the IRA intended to hold the horse here during ransom negotiations because of the location's remoteness. His belief that Shergar was buried in an unmarked grave means it is unlikely that the horse's remains will now be found, thus prolonging the mystery.
O'Callaghan openly concedes the IRA under-estimated Ireland's love affair with horses – and how the kidnapping could, ultimately, have cost thousands of jobs in a bloodstock industry that was facing an uncertain financial future.
It's a point echoed by North Yorkshire trainer Ferdy Murphy who was training 60 horses at the time in the heart of Dublin, close to the British Embassy, when Shergar vanished.
"I was gobsmacked that anyone had the audacity to do such a thing, especially in Ireland," he said. "You have to remember the lift that Shergar gave to the country when his connections said he was going to stud in Ireland. This was big news; like The Pope coming to Dublin. That big. I had the police down at my yard. They went through all the outbuildings. Chaos. Ireland was going through the doldrums. Shergar's arrival was a massive vote of confidence. Or it should have been."
There are reports that suggest the kidnappers sought to negotiate with the Aga Khan via his Paris office for up to four days.
Apparently, His Highness was not satisfied with the proof offered by the kidnap gang over Shergar's wellbeing. The gang's final words were: "If you are not satisfied, that's it." Even though the 1m Garda inquiry continued for many months, it was ultimately wound up. There was a flurry of interest several years ago when scientists examined a horse's skull containing two bullet holes that had been found wrapped in cloth in Tralee – some 200 miles from Shergar's stud. It was found to belong to a much younger horse.
Yet, because of the uncertainty over the horse's fate, the stud syndicate's insurers refused to pay out. They said Shergar could still be alive or may have died after the policy ran out.
They just could not be sure – a recurring question that still haunts Walter Swinburn.
"Of course I'd like to know what happened to Shergar. So would the whole world," added Swinburn as his voice tailed off.
"But will I? Probably never. Time's moved on. I just pray Shergar didn't suffer too much. But you can't even be sure of that."
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