Princess Zahra Aga Khan interview: I know what happened to Shergar
Exclusive: Truth behind the death of the iconic horse, stolen in 1983, has been unknown... until now
Princess Zahra Aga Khan at her horse training establishment in Chantilly, France Credit: Anya Campbell Photography
It is the greatest mystery in sporting history: What really happened to Shergar? The theories are plentiful and many of them absurd: that the world’s most best-known stallion, which was stolen from an Irish stud yard on the night of February 8, 1983, had been traded to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi by the IRA in exchange for weapons, that it had been seen being ridden by Lord Lucan, or that it was part of a mafia revenge plot.
But now, 43 years on, the truth can be confirmed – by Princess Zahra Aga Khan, the daughter of Shergar’s owner, the Aga Khan.
“I remember everything about Shergar,” she says in her first major interview since taking over her father’s horse-racing empire after his death last February. “We now know the horse was killed within two days [of being kidnapped]. They did so in an awful way.”
It has always been suspected that Shergar’s disappearance was the work of the IRA. They were the immediate suspects when six armed and masked men arrived at Ballymany Stud on that night 43 years ago. They told James Fitzgerald, head groom, that they were taking Shergar and would demand a £2m ransom for a horse that had become a sensation after obliterating the field to win the 1981 Derby, with his victory by 10 lengths memorably soundtracked by Peter Bromley, the BBC commentator, when he said: “You need a telescope to see the rest!”
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-rtZvofLPs
The kidnapping became front-page news almost immediately, as the thieves made their ransom demands. They at first communicated through Jeremy Maxwell, a horse trainer, before later declaring they would only deal with three British horse-racing journalists: John Oaksey of The Daily Telegraph and his ITV colleague Derek Thompson, and Peter Campling of The Sun.
The Aga Khan, the 49th imam of the Ismaili Muslims, is often held as responsible for not paying the ransom, but Princess Zahra explains that because of the horse being owned by a syndicate her father could not do so alone, and the prospect of helping to fund the IRA influenced the refusal to do so. She recalls the devastating effect it had on her father.
“I remember everything about Shergar,” she tells Telegraph Sport. “I was 12. We were in the mountains, we went up for breakfast and my father was sitting at a table, he was green, head in his hands, he’d been up for hours, we knew we couldn’t bother him. It went on and on.
“It was a protracted part of my childhood. Dad was so upset, there was great disbelief. People didn’t understand the horse was syndicated (the Aga Khan had actually only retained four out of 40 shares) and the ransom demand was only for 10 per cent of his stud value.
“I remember Dad saying over and over, not only was the horse not insured against kidnapping because who the hell was going to think of kidnapping a horse, but because the horse was syndicated he couldn’t get everyone to agree on what to do. He also argued that even if he could pay the ransom, he couldn’t do so if it was going to be used against human beings.”
Garda road checks stop and search horse boxes on the Newbridge-Naas road near where Shergar was taken on
Garda road checks stop and search horse boxes on the Newbridge-Naas road near where Shergar was taken in 1983 Credit: PA
The kidnappers sent repeated requests for payment, supplying photographs of Shergar’s head next to each day’s newspaper as proof he was still alive. The fact that it was the head alone was not enough to convince the syndicate, and the trail went cold a fortnight after the horse’s disappearance.
Since then there has been no conclusive evidence about what happened to Shergar, although a Sunday Telegraph stated in 2008 that the horse had been machine-gunned to death four days after being kidnapped, having been injured while being transferred.
The truth, says Princess Zahra, is that Shergar met his end earlier than previously thought, revealing it was two days after being kidnapped.
“It was very unprofessionally done and when they finally killed him, they did so in an awful way,” she continues, with emotion rising in her voice.
“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 with Aga Khan (centre) after winning the Irish Derby
Shergar with Aga Khan (centre) after winning the Irish Derby in 1980 Credit: Steve Powell/Getty Images
Hearing Princess Zahra tell the story of Shergar serves as a reminder of how long her family have been leading players in the racing industry. These are heady days for the Aga Khan Studs, too; 2025 was its best season since 1960, while in Calandagan and Daryz, who runs in Wednesday’s Prince of Wales’s Stakes, it has two of the best three horses in the world and with Rayif due to run in Tuesday’s St James’s Palace Stakes, the distinctive green silks with red epaulettes will get an airing most days at Royal Ascot this week.
With Princess Zahra now at the helm, the century-old breeding operation is in good hands for, at least, another generation.
If it feels like there has been a seamless continuity from father to daughter, it is because Princess Zahra was delegated the breeding side of the business by her father 20 years ago.
During that time, Aiglemont, the yard he built in the woods just outside Chantilly in 1977 – now under the auspices of Francis Graffard, France’s champion trainer – has matured into one of the finest training establishments anywhere in the world; if you could bottle the yard’s ambiance, you could sell it as the antidote to stress.
These days, now that she has a less hands-on role within the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) and her children have left home, Princess Zahra is more involved with the racing than the “nights and weekends” of the last three decades.
“This is the fun part,” she says, having spent dawn on the gallops. “To be in the barns, out in the morning, watching the sun come up over the trees. Until now I’ve always had other priorities ahead of being here.”
Princess Zahra Aga Khan
Princess Zahra Aga Khan took over the breeding side of the business from her father 20 years ago. Credit: Anya Campbell Photography
Horses, however, have never been far from Princess Zahra’s life despite a peripatetic upbringing spent between St Moritz in the winter, Sardinia in summer and in Chantilly in the shoulder seasons. “Until I was 11, I grew up in a house surrounded by a stable yard,” she recalls. “We could hear horses first thing in the morning. My parents started building Aiglemont in 1973. Mum and I came here every single day to see the progress.
“I think I was four the first time she put me on a horse. When we were in the mountains, I got so sick of skiing. This sounds like a terrible RPP (rich people problem). Dad was so passionate about skiing and had skied at the Innsbruck winter Olympics. We were sent out every day.
“There still is a stable in St Moritz. It was then I was taught to ride by Herr Biegler, an ex-cavalry officer. I’d go round the arena when I was five or six with a steel rod between my elbows behind my back, the old fashioned way. We used to go wandering on the deer trails. I loved it from the start.”
Since leaving Harvard, Princess Zahra has worked for the AKDN. Mostly east of Egypt, it provides hospitals, schools, telecommunications, banking, insurance and disaster planning to some of the poorest areas in the world, not just the diverse populations of Ismaili Muslims dotted around the world.
“Racing was my weekend job,” explains Princess Zahra, who now sits on many of the network’s boards. “I worked with dad for 30 years. He put me in charge of health and education when I was 30. I asked not to because I was younger than all my colleagues. I said ‘dad, this is so nepotistic I can’t do this!’ and he said ‘no no, you’ve learned enough’ and put me in charge of health and education, planning and building services, disaster mitigation and response, that was what I did.”
Princess Zahra Aga Khan
Princess Zahra Aga Khan took a fondness for horses unlike her brother Credit: Anya Campbell Photography
Neither of her full-brothers Rahim, the Aga Khan V, or Hussain, an underwater photographer, engaged in racing. “Either you do or you don’t,” she says. “The first year back from Harvard, dad asked me to attend his breeding meetings. Most meetings with my dad were very long; three or four days, sitting at a table going through every pedigree. All his advisers had different opinions and had to talk it through. It was what it was.
“After a year, Nemone (Routh, racing manager) and Pat Downes (manager of the Irish studs) found ourselves doing the breeding. We were thrown in the deep end. Pat had worked at the Irish National stud, I had sat in on a few of the breeding meetings and Nemone came from the International Racing Bureau. Georges Rimaud joined us in the year 2000. Without really being aware of it, the breeding operation was the first thing Dad properly delegated to me and we reported back.
“The first three years we worked together he was incredibly patient with us, he would sit with us for hours, talk us through in-breeding, each sire, what was speed, what was Classic French blood, he really spent the time so we knew his theories. At first we sent him piles of proposals for pedigrees and then we took it down to Group One or valuable mares and, I guess, eventually he stopped reading them.
“What we changed 20 years ago was to bring in more precocity and more speed. Dad didn’t like sprinters. My great grandfather had some very fast horses including his foundation mare Mumtaz Mahal but over time the Aga Khan horses became seen as late developing Classic types with stamina but as soon as we looked for speed, we found it.”
Last season, the Princess’s first in charge, eight Group Ones were won. Calandagan won the King George, Champion Stakes and Japan Cup, making him the highest-earning horse in French racing history. Daryz won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
“It was the best year we’ve had since the year my grandfather, an amateur rider, was killed in a car crash. That year, dad was wondering whether to stick with it or not. That’s why Petite Etoile, a brilliant four-year-old then, was so important. He spent a year wondering if he would carry it on but he saw breeding as an intellectual and scientific challenge. The stud was nearly 40 years old, he already felt there was such a family tradition with it.
“I get confused, last year and this year, so many great results. But we’ve also had some very lean years. You know with breeding there’ll be good times and bad times.”
Princess Zahra leaves door open to having horses trained in Britain
Though the family had bred and raced horses in India since moving there after a contretemps with the Shah of Iran in 1845, it was Princess Zahra’s great-grandfather, Aga Khan III, who began the European breeding operation in Britain in 1922.
Over time, that became concentrated in Ireland, at Gilltown in Kildare, and in Normandy. Though she would never say ‘no’ to having horses trained in Britain again after her father removed 90 in the early 1990s following Aliysa’s Oaks disqualification, she feels it would now be impractical.
“It made sense to try and centralise it,” she points out. “At some points, we had eight trainers including three in Britain. Forgive my unvarnished words but it is far more cost-effective to have horses in training where you have land and can send the horses back which need a break from training. The logistics of it are that it is easier to have the majority of horses here in France and right now we need stability, we’ve already gone through massive change in the last couple of years.”
That change involved Alain de Royer-Dupré retiring to be replaced by Graffard and, in tandem, Mickael Barzalona replacing Christophe Soumillon.
“I like the way Francis thinks; there’s music, there are dogs, there’s life out there in the barns,” she points out. “He’s a very steady person. He has the capacity to delegate, he’s open to conversation and is someone who is very considerate about horses, not just physical health but psychological health.
“I nearly had a conniption when he ran Drazinda (two-year-old) in the spring, we never have early two-year-olds! And now she will be our first Ascot two-year-old for as long as I can remember. It’s great racing. Though my favourite is a simple mid-week day at Longchamp, you couldn’t have a runner at Royal Ascot and not be there, that’d be naff!”
From Shergar to Royal Ascot, Princess Zahra has had a front-row seat for everything this sport can throw at you.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/racing/2026 ... r-mystery/
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