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By Ray Hickson

Jappalouis has been a real labour of love for his connections over the past few years and new trainer Ben Brisbourne hopes he can deliver them a first-up reward at Wagga on Sunday.

The grey was purchased back in 2020 by owners Warren Beale and Carey Ward, who used to train widely travelled grey sprinter Polygram, for just $1000 and he had six starts for Cody Morgan in northern NSW before sustaining a tendon injury in early 2022.

Trainer Ben Brisbourne (Pic: Racing Photos)

More than three and a half years later the now eight-year-old reboots his career the Bowyer Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Plate (1200m).

Brisbourne said Jappalouis had been given plenty of time to recover from his injury and while he’s still working the horse out it’s clear he has the potential to win races.

“He’d done the recovery and all of a sudden he landed with us when he was ready to go even time,’’ he said.

“We’ve had him in work for two or three months, he’s had a trial and a jump out and has been working well so he’s ready to go to the races.

“He’s getting on in age but hasn’t got too many miles on the clock. We’ll see how much ability he retains when he races to see if he’s competitive or not.”

Jappalouis is quite a deal more grey than he was when he last raced and Brisbourne said some trial and error in his lead up appears to have been valuable.

His first hitout was over 1170m in an official trial but it was in an 800m jump out, with Brisbourne’s apprentice Alice Kennedy in the saddle, he really caught the eye.

“We gave him a trial over what I thought was the right distance for his first one and he put himself in a good spot but probably overdid things,’’ he said.

“In his second jump out we rode him quieter and asked him to finish off more than we did in the first one and he appreciated that style.

“Alice has done plenty of work with him and knows him well.”

That knowledge tells Brisbourne the wide barrier in his resumption isn’t such a big deal as he’ll look to settle back and run on and the trainer said he couldn’t have picked a better race.

“He was supposed to go around in the last 10 days or so but barriers and abandoned meetings haven’t been his friend,’’ he said.

“He kicks off over 1200m which is probably a suitable trip and meets a race that doesn’t look extremely strong at all.”

Brisbourne is backing up six-year-old Mishima in the Opteon Property Group Handicap (1600m) after running fourth on the Riverside track last Monday.

While his record reads one win from 21 starts he’s only had the five runs for Brisbourne, including that maiden win, and he’s anticipating a competitive showing.

“He took a fair while to break his maiden but we’re starting to find the key to him now,’’ he said.

“I thought he got the mile well and we rode him conservatively for that reason so he got a tick in that box. We will be able to ride him a bit closer this time and the bigger track of the course proper will suit him well.

“The two Hayes horses are there to be respected, I’d expect only one to turn up, and I’d expect him to be around top three or four.”

All the fields, form and replays for Sunday's Wagga meeting