Shergar said to be dead

Press, 12 February 1983, Page 6

Shergar said to be dead

NZPA Belfast Anonymous telephone callers yesterday said that the $2l million champion racehorse. Shergar. stolen last Tuesday by an armed gang, was dead. Both the British Broadcasting Corporation and the wife of the Northern Ireland trainer. Jeremy Maxwell, reported receiving calls saying that the 1981 English and Irish Derby winner died early yesterday. There was no immediate indication that the messages were genuine but they were said to have been coded and Mrs Judy Maxwell appeared satisfied the man who made the call had spoken to her before. BBC Radio Ulster reported that the caller said the stallion injured himself in his horse-box and that it was “kinder to pul him down."

Two widely different ransom demands are reported to have been made for the

return of the champion racehorse. In Newbridge the man leading the hunt for the $22 million stallion. Chief Superintendent James Murphy said that an anonymous caller had demanded a ransom of 12 million ($4.4 million). The call was received at the Aga Khan's Ballymany Stud near Newbridge, oh Wednesday evening, 24 hours after the five-year-old bay was seized by a group of armed men. On Thursday evening Mr Maxwell said that he had been called by a man with a southern Irish accent demanding LIOOO ($2200) for everv share in Shergar. a total’ of L 40.000 ($82,000). Mr Murphy said he would have no part in any negotiations involving money. Fears have been expressed that paying a ransom could open the floodgates and threaten Ireland's valuable bloodstock industry.