Whodunnit? Sport's greatest unsolved kidnapping 30 years on

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/07/sport...pping-ira-30-anniversary/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

(CNN) -- It was a foggy winter's night on the remote Ballymany Stud Farm in Ireland when its head groom Jim Fitzgerald heard a knock at the door.

What lurked outside was to spark one of the most extraordinary unsolved kidnappings of the 20th Century.

Thirty years ago this week -- on February 8, 1983 -- Fitzgerald was confronted by three masked gunmen. They had come for Shergar -- then the most valuable race horse in the world and the pride of a nation.

"Shergar was the best race horse in the world, owned by the richest man in the world. It was the most sensational sports story of all time," racing commentator Derek Thompson told CNN.............

This, after all, was the champion colt who two years earlier annihilated the field at Britain's prestigious Epsom Derby, winning by 10 lengths -- the biggest margin in the race's 226-year history.........

More at link....

The great Shergar. This is a great story. (The name also became an unexpected pun in light of the horse meat-in-the-beef scare in the UK recently; after Burger King admitted, after denying it, that they, too, had served horse meat unawares, pundits began referring to them as "Shergar King.")

This truly was the greatest sports crime of all-time, although since it occurred elsewhere few may have heard of it here.

Great, great horse. I love Secretariat but Shergar - those two had the same sort of souls. Indomitable.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpIzPuiDN60"]Shergar wins the 1981 Derby - rare commentary by Peter Bromley for BBC Radio 2 - YouTube[/ame]

The disappearance of Shergar ... 30 years on (Irish Examiner)

In Pictures: Shergar 30 Years On (Irish Independent)

After all this time, the IRA must tell us what they did with super-horse Shergar (Daily Mail)

Yes, The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes features this mystery. It's only case they cover where the principal victim is not a human being. I say principal victim because he was almost certainly killed, perhaps after he injured himself. Of course, his owners were victims too because they lost him as an investment as well as their personal attachment, I would assume.

It reminds me of the Roy Rogers movie where Trigger was kidnapped and held for ransom except the film had a happier ending. I wonder if the perpetrators had seen this movie.

wfgodot said:

Great, great horse. I love Secretariat but Shergar - those two had the same sort of souls. Indomitable.
Shergar wins the 1981 Derby - rare commentary by Peter Bromley for BBC Radio 2 - YouTube

Click to expand...

At least Secretariat could take dictation. :what: