Sakhee one of the best: Suroor

Any faint hopes of seeing the great Arc winner Sakhee compete for the last time were dashed on Monday with the news that the Godolphin star will retire with immediate effect.

Godolphin announced that they had been unsuccessful in their bid to get Sakhee fit enough to race in Saturday's Group 1 Emirates Airline Champion Stakes at Newmarket, which was earlier intended as the five-year-old's swan song.

Saeed bin Suroor, who trained the multiple-group winner, led the tributes. "He is certainly one of the best horses I've trained and he gave us a lot of pleasure during his illustrious career giving us some of our best results," he said.

"He really was a great favourite of mine and I think he was unlucky not to have enjoyed more races. He was the best horse in the world last year. He won the big European races very impressively and comprehensively beat the best horses in Europe."

Sakhee, who is bred and owned by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance and Industry, will stand for a fee of £20,000 at Shadwell Stud in Norfolk for the 2003 breeding season.

He was bred in the United States at the Sheikh Hamdan owned Shadwell Farm and is from the first crop of the 1995 champion miler Bahri, winner of the Group One Queen Elizabeth II Stakes and Group One St James's Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Sakhee was rated the best race horse in the world last year after he won the Group One Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe en route to being crowned by World Series Racing Champion.

But he earned the utmost respect for a bold performance which saw him beaten only a nose by Tiznow in the Grade One Breeders' Cup Classic on his first race on dirt.

Frankie Dettori, who rode Sakhee to his biggest triumphs, said: "Sakhee was one of the best horses I've ever ridden. His wins in the Arc and the Juddmonte International were the best performances seen in these races for years.

"Sakhee was a grand old servant and horses with his ability rarely come around and I was very privileged to ride him. He was always very straight forward-a gentleman of a horse, and when he was on song he was unbeatable. Let's hope his offsprings are as good as him."

Godolphin's Simon Crisford said: "Sakhee has been a great champion for Godolphin and his stunning victory in the Arc last year and brilliant run in the Breeders' Cup Classic were the highlights for us. It is a great shame that he will not make it to the Champion Stakes."

Earlier this year Richard Lancaster, Stud Director at Shadwell Stud, had commented: "We are obviously delighted to be having Sakhee at Shadwell.

"He will join our other new stallion Act One and they together with Green Desert will make up a formidable stallion team for 2003. It is especially good for Shadwell to be getting a stallion like Sakhee following the losses of Nashwan and Unfuwain.

"Sakhee's racing career has been absolutely outstanding and nobody will forget the manner in which he absolutely decimated two high-class fields last year in the Juddmonte International and in the Arc. He has all the credentials for making an outstanding stallion."

Sakhee, runner-up to Sinndar in the 2000 Epsom Derby, was trained by John Dunlop until the end of his three-year-old career. He won eight of his 14 races amassing a total of £2,192,047 in prize-money.