Shergar - horsenapped 30 years ago today

[Shamrock Shore]

Aside from the predictable burger jokes can anyone point to where Shergar is buried - or is he still working in a 7-11 with Elvis?

I remember the day well when the news came in. Seemingly the Gardaí started checking car boots and lofts looking for the horse.

All anecdotal evidence points to the horse going mental and being shot after a day or so and buried in Leitrim - but nothing was ever found to back this up.

[camanchero]

Aside from the predictable burger jokes can anyone point to where Shergar is buried - or is he still working in a 7-11 with Elvis?

I remember the day well when the news came in. Seemingly the Gardaí started checking car boots and lofts looking for the horse.
All anecdotal evidence points to the horse going mental and being shot after a day or so and buried in Leitrim - but nothing was ever found to back this up.

hard to believe but true!

[Rossfan]

anyone point to where Shergar is buried -

All anecdotal evidence points to the horse going mental and being shot after a day or so and buried in Leitrim -

Maybe them Sinn Féin fans from the other thread could help you with your enquiries 

General belief is somewhere along the Layhtrum/Cyaavan border -- I'd imagine not a million miles from Ballinamore.

[Shamrock Shore]

Me auld lad always claimed he heard a 'Hurse Box' going up our road (which is the road to Mohill) at 4 in the morning that night/morning of the horsenapping.

Our place in history.

Jason Statham to play me in the film version of the event.
Daniel Day Lewis will pay Auld Shamrock Shore
Tesco will hold auditions for the horse role.

[brokencrossbar1]

Lads shergar was the first horse burger (well actually he was a load of beef sausages from what I heard ). He was filleted in a meat factory on the border, allegedly.

[seafoid]

It must have been some shock to the horse- from Shangri La at stud with over 50 mares to a total IRA nightmare.

[muppet]

It must have been some shock to the horse- from Shangri La at stud with over 50 mares to a total IRA nightmare.

We have a proud history of nagocide in Ireland and the Shergar nagociders should be honoured just like the men of Kinsale, and Jesus like.

[theticklemister]

Lads shergar was the first horse burger (well actually he was a load of beef sausages from what I heard ). He was filleted in a meat factory on the border, allegedly.

Maybe wuilloe frazer was right all along!!

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

The RAheads/Shinners had some glory against the evil horsies in Hyde Park too.

[Jonah]

Nally Stand had him stuffed in his front room.

[seafoid]

Nally Stand had him stuffed in his front room.

shergar must have been a stoop

[Donnellys Hollow]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDl8T9-VWVs

Shame on the sub human scum who brutally machine gunned this great creature to death and jeopardising countless Irish jobs in the process

[Itchy]

How do you know he was machine gunned.

[Donnellys Hollow]

How do you know he was machine gunned.

Most investigators accepted from early on, however, that the IRA was to blame. A decade ago Sean O'Callaghan, an IRA double killer turned police double agent, used his book, The Informer, to name seven former Provos he claimed had planned and carried out the horse's kidnap. The book identified Kevin Mallon, a senior IRA leader, as the man who had devised the plot. Mallon, a convicted killer originally from Co Tyrone, eventually became part of IRA folklore after shooting his way out of one prison and being lifted by helicopter from another. O'Callaghan suggested the horse had thrown itself into a frenzy, injured a leg and that it was put out of its misery and "was killed within days ... even though the IRA kept up the pretence that he was alive".

However, according to one impeccable source - a former IRA member who spoke through an intermediary - not even O'Callaghan had been told the full truth of Shergar's final hours, because the gang was so embarrassed by what happened. The source, who was a close friend of one of the kidnappers, said that the Army Council, the Provos' ruling body, had sanctioned the kidnap. Furthermore, by contacting leading IRA men in Co Leitrim the leadership had guaranteed the horse "safe passage" to a remote farm close to the border. According to the former IRA member, the kidnappers' problems became acute early on because the vet who had agreed to look after Shergar pulled out on the night of the horse's abduction. "His wife had found out what he was up to and warned him that if he walked out of the door [to look after Shergar] he would never walk in again," said the source.

The Sunday Telegraph has been told that four days after Shergar was seized, and following extensive stalling by the Aga Khan's representative, the Army Council realised their equine "property" was worthless and told the gang to release the horse. However, by then Mallon was under surveillance, the Garda were crawling all over Ireland and he felt it was impossible to move Shergar or free the horse close to where it was being held. Instead, Mallon ordered that the horse be shot. What happened next is not for the fainthearted. Those who looked after and rode Shergar agree that he was one of the kindest, gentlest racehorses ever to grace the racetrack. By the evening of the fourth day, although distressed by his new surroundings, he was not badly injured, as O'Callaghan had thought.

The source said that the two handlers, one clutching a machine gun, went into the remote stable where the horse was being held and opened fire. "Shergar was machine gunned to death. There was blood everywhere and the horse even slipped on his own blood. There was lots of cussin' and swearin' because the horse wouldn't die. It was a very bloody death." It was several minutes before the horse, which was in agony, slowly bled to death.

And so, the greatest racehorse of the century was butchered in the same way that the IRA killed many of its human enemies. The source did not know exactly where Shergar's body was buried, but the fact that his carcass was riddled with bullets meant the gang did everything to ensure Shergar's remains were never found. Many in the Republic, including broad Republican sympathisers, would never have forgiven the IRA and its political wing, Sinn Fein, for machine gunning the equine pride of the nation in cold blood.

This vivid image of how Shergar died confirmed the worst fears of one of the most senior figures in Irish racing. He said he had long suspected that the horse, in the hands of non-experts, had met a lingering death "crazed with pain". The man, who asked not to be identified, said only an expert should kill a horse - there is a spot the size of a thumb nail on the animal's head which the bullet, or humane killer, has to hit to prevent suffering.

The failure to find Shergar's body meant that only members of the syndicate who had insured the horse for theft - as well as death or an accident - were compensated by their insurance companies. Stan Cosgrove, now 81, who spent more than £80,000 trying to get the horse back and, later, in trying to prove that Shergar was dead, has never received a penny. The IRA has privately tried to blame renegade members for the kidnap, but Kevin O'Connor, a historian and journalist with top Republican contacts, dismisses this idea.
"An operation of this intensity requiring this amount of manpower would have to have been authorised at a high level," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576718/The-truth-about-Shergar-racehorse-kidnapping.html

How could anyone with a shred of humanity inflict such a gruesome death on this magnificent creature?

[Itchy]

There were a lot of people machine gunned too, I'd say many more people were upset about people being gunned down than a horse.