Shergar Shergar Shergar (3 March 1978 – c. February 1983) was an Irish-bred, British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse. After a very successful season in 1981 he was retired to the Ballymany Stud in County Kildare, Ireland. In 1983 he was stolen from the stud, and a ransom of £2 million was demanded; it was not paid, and negotiations were soon broken off by the thieves. In 1999 a supergrass, formerly in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), stated they stole the horse. The IRA has never admitted any role in the theft. The Aga Khan, Shergar's owner, sent the horse for training in
The Great Match (horse race) Handicap, run at York, before finishing unplaced in his final three racecourse appearances, including the Ascot Gold Cup, and then retiring to stud himself. The Great Match (horse race) The Great Match is the name given to a match race between two of the most famous British thoroughbred racehorses of the 19th Century - Voltigeur and The Flying Dutchman. The race took place at York on 31 May 1851 for a purse of 1,000 sovereigns. The Flying Dutchman was a five-year-old, who had won the 1849 Epsom Derby and St Leger and, as a four-year-old, the 1850 Ascot Gold Cup.