. . . this BH feature is an intriguing reminder that one of the most written about crimes in horse racing history remains unsolved. I recall reading Toby’s book when it first came out years ago. Bizarre is a word that comes to mind when I think of actions of everyone involved and that included an American connection of owners.
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/features/taking-shergar-838
I moved to Ireland in the late summer of 83. So the event was still fresh in everyone’s mind. The topic of conversation in pubs, sales and the racecourse. The popular theory was the IRA which at that time was very active. And the bases on which the 1999 movie Shergar was scripted. Newer saw this movie.
I have not read Toby’s book or much of anything since the early 80’s. Did Toby mention/write about the Murty Brothers involvement? They were very prominent Lexington KY based ‘wheeler and dealers’ in those days. The ‘insiders’ of the horse business thought that they had it done as ‘pay back’ because they felt they had gotten screwed big time by the Aga Khan in a big horse deal.
While doing a little fact check I stumbled on this 1979 article;
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20074435,00.html
I always found them to be a bit sleazy and couldn’t understand how they got so big and made so much money in the business. The bigger they are the harder they fall. In the end their world wide operation was kind of a house of cards.
They were arrested in 2013 for animal cruelty.
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/79767/murty-brothers-plead-not-guilty-to-charges
Thank you gentlemen for some fascinating horse history. Was FlipAway a son of SkipAway?
Gumtree: I have failed every memory question for at least the past 5 years but I think Toby did talk about Murty. Thanks for the two links. I hadn’t seem them. Interesting.
You were somewhat of a fly on the wall in IR as the Shergar tragedy settled. That must have been very interesting,
Merrygoround: I checked pedigree query and I don’t think so. Was Flipaway kidnapped? I remember betting against Skippy and there were moments I wished he had been. At least for that particular race.
It’s pretty much taken for granted at this point that it was an IRA kidnap job gone wrong. Keep in mind that during the 70’s and early 80s IRA kidnapping for ransom were fairly common. Usually high profile business men who’s companies and families would be expected to cough up the ransom.
Several ex-IRA men have more or less confirmed that it was the IRA that did it. A unit from the north was sent down to pull of the job, and they were more than likely fellas that hadn’t a clue how to handle a horse, let alone a high strung TB stallion. Somewhere along the way the horse got injured. They tried to have vet out to look at him but the vet backed out and the horse couldn’t very well be transported to a clinic with the massive police search that was going on, so he was shot with a machine gun and body dumped in a bog hole in Leitrim.
Sad end.
Such a great horse. I remember his Derby win like it was yesterday, jaw dropping, when Walter Swinburn drops into saddle coming around Tattenham Corner and asks him to move, man that is a spine chilling move… 1981 Epsom Derby.
His Irish Derby win was none too shabby either, this time with Lester Piggot in the irons deputising for the suspended Walter Swinburn.
As I recall, and it has been sometime since I read Toby’s book, but not only was the IRA connected but also Toby alluded to a Middle Eastern (Libya, I think) arms dealing connection.
I do recall that everyone seemed miffed by the Aga Khan’s apparent indifference or lack of attention to the episode and the fact that he didn’t travel to IR at the time. Of course, there were multiple owners by this time.
I was also quite interested in the USA connection to the breeding syndicate that included the likes of Virginians, the late Paul Mellon and late Raymond Guest.
I guess we’ll just never know.
I read Colin Turner’s book In Search of Shergar years ago. Turner is/was a radio personality in Ireland. He got himself involved in the hunt, and supposedly even had semi-regular contact with one of the kidnappers.
It’s an interesting read, but several other sources close to the case discredit Turner’s accounts.
I often wished that Shergar was simply hidden on some farm. But in reality, the story that he was injured during the abduction and killed is probably the true story. His owner chose not to pay the ransom. Can’t fault the owner. The Irish resistance killed some of the British police horses with the bombs it detonated in the UK. One that was injured was put out to pasture. Several years later that horse’s full brother was retired from police service and taken to the retirement farm. The 2 full brothers recognized each other according to aa UK horse magazine I subscribed to. Wish the same ending could have happened for Shergar. He was a great horse.
No Shammy, Flipaway, was not kidnapped. IIRC he stood at stud in NJ.
There were many that felt the IRA didn’t do it because they were pros and didn’t screw up a good plan. They wanted the money and almost always got it and the victim was released . I am not an expert on the IRA so I maybe wrong. I don’t think any money was ever paid.
There were a a lot of Irish Americans who supported in the IRAs acts of terrorism. Especially the “Boston Irish”. A lot of their funding came from the States from what I was told when living there. Having been part of the Youth Movement of the 60s and early 70s I had a keen interest in discussing these things while living there. I came of age in the early 70s
But it was a bit of an eye opener for this ‘silly American’. When going to Dublin airport there were several check points, military police with machine guns. Check points when driving around different parts of the country side.
But when I flew over as a flight groom to live there I had two big trunks full of my stuff. Obviously you don’t unload horses at the terminal. When off loading at Shannon Airport the passport control guy met us at the plane on the tarmac. He stamped my passport and I showed him my trunks but he didn’t open them let alone go through them. I thought man, I could have smuggled all kinds of stuff in.
The mystery of Shergar and who did it may take a long time to come out. Kinda of like ‘who really killed Kennedy’?
Just remembered a funny cartoon of the time that we had in our office at the BBA Ireland (British Bloodstock Agency). I think it was from the Sporting Life, (kind of like The Daily Racing Form) no longer in print.
It was of two guys in a phone booth with masks on. One was on the phone and the caption said “yea we got the horse, we have his balls to prove it”. The other guy was holding up a paper bag.
Probably not as funny without seeing the picture of the 2 silly looking charterers and the expression on their faces. Especially the guy ‘holding the bag’. I can still visualize it and cracks me up. I understand it was serious business but sometimes we just need to make light of serious things.
In case some don’t ‘get it’. The horse would be worthless without the ‘package’ Another example of a “perfectly good plan screwed up by amateurs”
[QUOTE=merrygoround;8524239]
No Shammy, Flipaway, was not kidnapped. IIRC he stood at stud in NJ.[/QUOTE]
So much for my misguided humor.:o Well, the short answer is there were two Flipaway pedigrees. One sired by Venetian Way in 1962 and one sired by Three Wonders in 2004. Both were sires with very few registered progeny.
Gumtree: The Toby book alluded to the exchange of money to an unidentified party in France. The source of the money was not identified and the recipient was unknown. As I recall, because I seemed to have misplaced my copy, that was the point at which the Middle Eastern connection was made. The money was connected to an unscheduled commercial air flight to Dubai or Saudi Arabia (can’t remember) that stopped for unknown reasons in Paris. The arms trading was a separate discussion in the book.
Like I said, when I finished reading the book, my thought was that the whole story is bizarre. Having traveled to IR on a number of occasions, one time previous to the Shergar incident, I thought IR is such a beautiful country, with welcoming folks, and such a long tradition with horses, how could this be? Not only that, but SHERGAR was an extraordinary athlete as well as a beautiful specimen. Both characteristics the Irish admire in their horses. Who’d have guessed?
[QUOTE=gumtree;8524307]
There were many that felt the IRA didn’t do it because they were pros and didn’t screw up a good plan. They wanted the money and almost always got it and the victim was released . I am not an expert on the IRA so I maybe wrong. I don’t think any money was ever paid.[/QUOTE]
But that was the irony of it, they sent down a crack active service unit from the North, as the northern boys were considered more proficient than the southern units. While they may have been one of the most efficient forces the world has ever seen at kidnapping, blowing stuff up and general urban guerrilla warfare, these lads were from West Belfast and Derry and wouldn’t know a horse’s head from it’s tail. It’s often mooted that they would have been better served sending a unit from west Limerick or North Kerry, rural lads who would have been more acquainted with handling a horse.
There were a a lot of Irish Americans who supported in the IRAs acts of terrorism. Especially the “Boston Irish”. A lot of their funding came from the States from what I was told when living there. Having been part of the Youth Movement of the 60s and early 70s I had a keen interest in discussing these things while living there. I came of age in the early 70s
Yes, millions was sent from the US to the ‘cause’, mostly through NORAID. This was another great irony of the “troubles”, as the Irish Americans sending the money were more often than not devout and very conservative, yet the group they were funding was deeply rooted in leftist revolutionary ideology, and looked to the likes of Che Guevara, ETA, the Sandinistas, the FARC and the PLO as spiritual/ideological brothers.
Take a look at the Sinn Fein party manifesto, it would make Bernie Sanders look like an Eisenhower Republican. Funny to to think Irish Americans were lining up to shake Gerry Adams’ hand and write him a check back in the day.
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