IRISH 2000 Guineas winner Awtaad and the Group 2 winning sprinter Markaz will retire to Derrinstown Stud in Maynooth, Co Kildare, next year.

Homebred by Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum, Awtaad won on his second and final start as a two-year-old last autumn.

After scoring by five lengths on his seasonal debut, he collected the Listed Tetrarch Stakes as a prelude to recording an emphatic victory over Newmarket classic winner Galileo Gold in the Irish 2000 Guineas.

Trainer Kevin Prendergast said the Cape Cross colt was “as good a horse as I’ve had.”

A slow early pace didn’t suit him when third in the St James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot and he was below par in the Sussex Stakes but he bounced back to form with a commanding victory in the Group 2 Boomerang Stakes at Leopardstown last month. He is due to run next in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes at Ascot in a fortnight’s time.

By Cape Cross, sire of Golden Horn and Sea The Stars, Awtaad is the first foal of Asheerah, a stakes-placed winner, by Shamardal, from the family of Seattle Slew.

Markaz, by leading sprint sire Dark Angel, is a full-brother to top sprinter Mecca’s Angel and he has proved himself to be a tough and consistent multiple group-winning sprinter.

A winner at Ascot and group-placed at 2, he has gone on to win or place in nine other group or listed races, including taking this year’s Group 2 Goldene Peitsche, the Group 3 Criterion Stakes over seven furlongs at Newmarket and the Group 3 Chipchase Stakes at Newcastle.

His full-sister sold for 825,000gns as a yearling at the 2015 Tattersalls October Book 1 Sale to Oliver St. Lawrence Bloodstock. Fees will be announced at a later date.