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.
