Fans hope tragic Shergar's colours sparkle once more

As violent end to all-time great horse's story is confirmed, Daryz represents his old stud in the Prince of Wales Stakes

- Greg Wood

There are high hopes for a royal winner at Ascot this week, when the king and queen are expected to have a runner on the first four days of the meeting.

Many fans, though, will also hope to see the green and red of the Aga Khan Studs in the winner’s enclosure after the weekend brought final closure in the ill-starred story of Shergar, whose 10-length winning margin in the 1981 Derby remains the all-time record.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Princess Zahra Aga Khan, the daughter of Shergar’s owner and breeder, Aga Khan IV, confirmed what had been the general wisdom in racing for many years - that the five-year-old stallion was shot not long after being kidnapped from Ballymany Stud in County Kildare by an armed IRA gang in February 1983.

“We now know the horse was killed within two days [of the kidnap],” Princess Zahra said.

“It was very unprofessionally done, and when they finally killed him, they did so in an awful way. The horse didn’t deserve that. Even as a stallion he was the kindest horse in the world, he was so unfairly treated.

“And why? He was a national symbol of Irish breeding and racing. It’s a long time ago, it was a very different world and people had different motivations back then.”

Shergar’s final resting place is unlikely to be found, as he is believed to have been buried in a bog in County Leitrim soon after being shot. His place on the roll of racing’s greatest champions, though, remains prominent, thanks to a brief but extraordinarily dominant sequence of wins in his three-year-old summer.