Kidnapped horse Shergar's fate unknown, 25 years on

By Jonathan Saul

DUBLIN (Reuters Life!) - He has been immortalized on the big screen, in a beer ad, with a racing cup named in his honor. Yet the fate of Shergar remains an enduring mystery 25 years after the champion stallion was kidnapped.

The celebrated Derby winner was snatched at gunpoint on February 8 1983 from Ireland's Ballymany stud farm, which was owned at the time by the Agha Khan, spiritual leader of the Ismaili Muslim sect.

The mafia, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) have all been popularly suggested as kidnapping suspects although no official evidence has emerged or any trace of the horse been found.

Memories of the night Shergar was taken still run deep for head stud groom Jim Fitzgerald, who was at home with his family on the farm.

"There was a knock on the door and one of my sons answered," Fitzgerald, 78, told Reuters. "These fellows rushed in with guns and balaclavas. They told us they were there to take Shergar."

"It was a terrible thing to happen. It was unreal and dreadful," he said after a long pause.

Fitzgerald was forced at gunpoint to identify Shergar and help load him on to a horse box which was then towed away.

Security at the farm, which was sold by the Aga Khan in 1991, was lax despite it being widely known that Shergar had been retired to stud with a syndicated value of 10 million pounds ($19.52 million).