Tralee Town Councillor, Tommy Foley, from Tralee, Co. Kerry, claimed he found the possible remains of the stallion's skull during an annual clean-up of a glen near the town. Gardai have told Mr Foley to take the horse's head to them so that it could be examined.
The kidnapping has captivated people's imagination for nearly two decades. There have been constant reports of sightings, but no trace has ever been found. Mr Foley said: "There were two bullet holes in the head and it was definitely a racehorse's head. "I was there with a farmer's son and he said it was not an ordinary horse."
The remains were reportedly hidden in a sack at the bottom of a ditch. Mr Foley added: "We decided to go into the extreme end of the glen this year where there was a lot of dumping taking place. "There is a possibility that it was him because when Shergar was abducted there was a Kerry connection."
An IRA gang snatched the Derby-winning horse from a stud in Co. Kildare. After four days of negotiations, which included the provision of a picture of Shergar with an up-to-date newspaper, the kidnappers suddenly fell silent.
Speaking on Thursday, a spokesman for the Ballmany stud hoped the horse would prove to be Shergar. He said: "It would mean that this long and very sad process could at last be ended." Des Leadon, head of clinical pathology at the Irish Equine Centre who has investigated a number of horse corpses believed to have been Shergar, said: "There have been so many sightings over so many years that it is difficult to pre-judge them. "One horse looks very much like another to an untrained eye, and it is only through detailed testing that we can check. "First we need to make certain that it is equine, then determine the age and other factors, and then, if these things point to it being a racehorse, we would use DNA testing."
Unfortunately, following tests carried out on the skull, experts have confirmed that the age of the horse's head discovered in Tralee was such as to avoid the necessity of carrying out further tests. It was definitely not the remains of Shergar, they stated. Councillor Foley said that he was disappointed that the mystery of Shergar's disappearance still remains unsolved.
