Rejuvenated Victorian harness racing trotter Parisian Artiste is Inter Dominion (ID24 NSW) bound again after capturing his second Swan Hill Cup on Friday night (Nov 1).
Parisian Artiste in full flight at Swan Hill – next stop ID24 in NSW (Jo Morrish Photo)
The harness racing six-year-old is building back to his formidable best and his King of the North @ Llowalong Farms Swan Hill Trotters Cup win told trainer Alex Ashwood all he needed to know about heading north at the end of the month.
“He is 100 percent sound, he’s happy, he’s healthy and getting back to what he was. We couldn’t be happier. So we will give him a little freshen up and the Inter is where we will aim now,” he said.
Parisian Artiste, known at the stables as Hector, has been building steadily through his latest comeback campaign.
Driven by Ashwood’s partner Tayla French the trotter had recorded three solid placings, most notably an eye-catching second to superstar Just Believe in the Maryborough Cup at his previous start.
At Swan Hill, Parisian Artiste started off a 20-metre handicap and French cruised around to sit outside the leader for the final mile of the 2690 metre journey before scoring comfortably by 2.3 metres.
The win was the first in over two years for Parisian Artiste who was one of Victoria’s best in his three- and four-year-old seasons.
The VicBred Super Series Final was among eight three-year-old victories, and at four, he took out the Swan Hill and Maryborough Cups before tackling the 2022 Inter Dominion.
“Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we probably shouldn’t have put him in that Inter Dominion series at four,” Ashwood said.
“Being a home Inter we thought we might as well have a throw at the stumps because he was racing so well. But he was a tired horse and had too many hard runs going into the series.
“He still held his own and made the final (sixth) but it basically all went downhill from there.”
Soon after that campaign, Parisian Artiste presented with what appeared to be colic symptoms.
“He couldn’t pass manure or urine, and we went back and forth to the vets for a week,” Ashwood said.
“They were talking bowel surgery, and they couldn’t even tell us whether he would survive. Then one of the vets dropped onto that it might be a nerve issue (rather than colic) and that was the turning point. He spent four weeks at the clinic, and it was a long road from there,” he said.
