Danoli can look forward to a 'healthy and happy' retirement according to trainer Tom Foley.
It was announced on Sunday that the 12-year-old gelding`s racing career was over.
And his trainer Tom Foley said today: 'I let him out in the field this morning and he sprinted away like a two-year-old - he`s just perfect.
'He might possibly go to his owner`s (Danny O`Neill) which is about five miles away from me but the main thing is that he will have a healthy and happy retirement.
'The owner decided to retire him - it was his wish.
'He has retired sound. If we had raced him again and he`d had a fall that might not have been the case.'
His big-race wins included the 1994 Sun Alliance Novices` Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival, two Martell Aintree Hurdles and the Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup at Leopardstown in 1997.
After his second victory at Aintree in 1995 Danoli suffered a fractured fetlock and underwent life-saving surgery at Liverpool University Veterinary School.
Danoli fully recovered but it is the legacy of that injury which worries Foley.
'Since the operation the vets have been concerned from day one that, with an injury in a joint, arthritis would set in with age,' explained the trainer. 'I wouldn`t see him in any pain.'
Foley has several fond memories of the horse, whom he describes as a being 'so gentle you could sleep in his box with him'.
He said: 'Cheltenham will be hard to forget - it was great to go there and win with one and his win in the Hennessy was another.
'But the one that brought a tear to my eye was his first run back after his injury when he finished third to Collier Bay in the Irish Champion Hurdle.'
Danoli won 17 of his 32 starts and was the top-rated in his novice season over hurdles, 1993/94.
