Episode list

Coming soon with Vanilla Ice... 'Sport's Strangest Crimes: The Real Story of Shergar the Super Horse'. This is the story of the world's most high-profile kidnap...of a horse. Welcome to Epsom, the year is 1981 and 'Shergar' a prized stallion, has just won the 202nd Derby by ten lengths - the longest winning margin in the race's history. Owned by the Aga Khan, the millionaire community leader, the champion horse gained international prominence and was regarded as a national hero during a difficult period in Irish history. On a cold winter night in 1983, a group of armed men entered the Ballymany Stud in balaclavas and stole the stallion declaring: "We have come for 'Shergar'. We want £2 million for him." The codeword for future negotiations was to be "King Neptune". While the facts of this case have been widely reported, this series unpicks the theories about the disappearance. We'll revisit all the bizarre events that took place after the kidnap, from psychics to horse skulls to negotiations led by English journalists. We unpick the police case and the comedy character leading it, trilby-wearing superintendent James Murphy and meet the sport's journalist Derek "Tommo" Thompson who was flown to Belfast to negotiate the release. Using archives, news reports and new interviews, we go along on a ride that has some strange turns, oddball characters and juicy conspiracies. Almost 40 years on from his kidnap, we look back at a story that gripped the world to try and understand why the horse's legacy still lives on. Told by the Texan tones of Vanilla Ice, we'll reveal some of the strange theories that made this Irish story go global.

A horse is kidnapped in the middle of the night. His name was 'Shergar'. He's not just any horse, he's a prize-winning racehorse owned by an enigmatic spiritual leader, made famous for winning the 1981 Epsom Derby by 10 lengths. A celebrity, a symbol of hope for Ireland, but mostly a real money earner. He was retired and ready to produce more prize-winning offspring, when suddenly he was taken. Vanilla Ice has become fascinated with the story and sets the scene.

A cold and stormy night in Ireland is made even more terrifying by the presence of armed and masked men. "We've come to take 'Shergar', we want £2,000,000" Kidnappings were not unusual in Ireland at this time, except most of the time it was humans that were taken... some never came back. Who would want a horse? A stallion that no longer raced?

The international press had a field day, filling the front pages and the lead item on the news. The world was now watching the case develop. A horse kidnap dominated our screens. Gossip, rumours, lies, confusion. The papers get tip offs, false calls and leads that sound legitimate. Then suddenly the kidnappers have one weird request: they're ready to negotiate, but want to speak to three English journalists.

The Europa 3, unsuspecting sports journalists get flown to Belfast, over 100 miles from the crime scene to a farm belonging to horse trainers the Maxwells. Phone calls ensue, back and forth, details change, voices get more menacing. The police are on hand to try and trace the calls, but for some reason, they can't find them. Suddenly negotiations stop, there is a pause, then one final phone call.

Questions emerge about the validity of the calls outside Belfast and attention is drawn elsewhere where parallel secret negotiations seem to be happening with the mysterious leader and main owner of 'Shergar', the Aga Khan. But nothing can stop the rumour mill from churning and there are reports 'Shergar' is in Libya with Gadaffi and also that he has been taken by the New Orleans mafia. It becomes impossible to separate fact from fiction.

Whilst the horse wasn't just owned by 'His Highness, the Aga Khan', but in fact a syndicate of many shareholders, this episode focuses on one shareholder that had a lot to lose, Stan Cosgrove (The Vet). He was keen to get his insurance payout, but the only way to do so was to prove that 'Shergar' was in fact dead. Co-ordinating with the kidnappers he organised to get a Polaroid to prove the horse was still alive.

The police used many methods to locate 'Shergar' and most interestingly they sought help from psychics, diviners and the mysterious Mobius group. They claimed to be able to locate 'Shergar' and used parts of his saddle to sniff him out. A supergrass emerges claiming he knows the identity of the masked men. Is this the end? Not for 'Shergar's legacy, his sporting achievements are still adored and his name used widely today to symbolise something we may never see again.