Leeds Nostalgia: Shergar goes missing... this week in 1981

He was voted European racehorse of the year in 1981 and this is how the Yorkshire Evening Post covered the story in February 1981
File photo dated 19/08/1981 of Shergar with Walter Swinburn. PRESS ASSOCIATION photo. Issue date: Thursday February 7, 2008. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the most infamous kidnapping in sport when 1981 Derby winner Shergar was stolen from a stable in Ireland. See PA story RACING Shergar. Photo credit should read: PA Wire.File photo dated 19/08/1981 of Shergar with Walter Swinburn. PRESS ASSOCIATION photo. Issue date: Thursday February 7, 2008. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the most infamous kidnapping in sport when 1981 Derby winner Shergar was stolen from a stable in Ireland. See PA story RACING Shergar. Photo credit should read: PA Wire.
File photo dated 19/08/1981 of Shergar with Walter Swinburn. PRESS ASSOCIATION photo. Issue date: Thursday February 7, 2008. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the most infamous kidnapping in sport when 1981 Derby winner Shergar was stolen from a stable in Ireland. See PA story RACING Shergar. Photo credit should read: PA Wire.

He won the 1981 Epson Derby by the biggest winning margin ever. He was worth £10m but unfortunately the well known and much adored race horse

Shergar was stolen by three armed men thought to belong to the IRA. On February 8 1983, the three men broke into Ballymany Stud and executed the armed theft of Shergar. At the time the men responsible demanded £2m ransom for his return but no ransom was paid and four days later the three men went quiet and nothing more was heard of Shergar. An investigation into the horses death in 2009 by The Daily Telegraph concluded that the mild mannered racehorse was machine-gunned to death by his IRA captors, before being butchered.