HIS once iron grey coat has turned white, but try telling him he’s a senior citizen. He struts into the paddock and heaves on his hind legs.

With a firm pull, he wrenches against the bit and, if you’re daft enough to try to pet him, he makes a beeline for your fingers.

Steve Knowles is delighted at such aggression. In the breeding game, a bit of fight is just what you’re after.

Paris may be the city of love. But York is the city of stallion extraordinaire Paris House – and Beechwood Grange Stud is where the action really happens.

If you had to tag him in one word, it’s “experienced”. The 20-year-old is the thoroughbred version of a Hollywood movie star.

The “ladies” have been arriving at Knowles’ stud farm, just off the A64 at Malton Road, for years and Paris House has rarely failed to deliver brilliance.

In his racing days, he was also a crowd puller. Without Lochsong, the speedy filly with pace to burn, Paris House may well have been Europe’s champion sprinter.

As it was, he flashed his way to Group victories in the Flying Childers Stakes, Temple Stakes and Palace House Stakes in a glorious period in the early 1990s.

He’d have had the Nunthorpe Stakes on Knavesmire too, had the girl with lightning in her legs not denied him.

It cost Knowles £50,000 to bring him back to York, but he’s never regretted the expense.

“It was a big investment,” he said. “He has been a great workhorse for us. He had sired Group winners in New Zealand before we got him. He had been on the go quite a while. He’s as tough as old boots.

“He was very wound up when we first got him. Now, he’s matured with age. We put an advert in the paper looking for a sire and he arrived from Ireland from Collins Stud.

“We flew over, leased him for a year and then – after the first season – they asked if we would buy him and the rest is history. We bought him and he’s been here ever since.

“It was a stroke of luck, but you want some now and again.”

If Paris House had beaten Lochsong on that York day, he would have been out of Knowles’ league. Instead, they’ve teamed up to put together a production line that has seen his star sire more than 375 winners, who have won more than £3.7 million in prize money.

Things may not be slowing down just yet.

The queues to the covering barn had been thinning as Paris House got older. Then came a match with Mr Prim. The result was a foal called Amour Propre.

Two juvenile course records at Bath and Warwick, and a brilliant win in the Group 3 Cornwallis Stakes at Ascot later, have made the Henry Candy-trained colt one of the hottest prospects for the new Flat season.

And it’s put Paris House back on everybody’s map.

“Amour Propre was born up the road here out of a mare called Mr Prim,” added Knowles, who has run Beechwood Grange with wife Josie for some 20 years.

“The owner this year has had the chance to go down to Newmarket for a real top horse and he won’t go – he wants to come back to Paris House. Henry Candy is expecting a tremendous amount of him. He is thinking of the Nunthorpe for it. That has boosted Paris House’s bookings for the year. It has put him right on the map again.

“We are hoping we will get around about 40 mares booked for him this year. That’s enough for an old horse, isn’t it? He’s still up to the task. He’s brilliant.

“He has been a good, old horse – one of the top sprinter sires in the country and we are hoping he will be all right and should have a good life in front of him.”

But time marches on. Paris House can’t continue forever. And in Desideratum, Knowles reckons he may just have the solution.

“He’s immaculately bred by Darshaan out of Desired. We bought him off Sheikh Mohammed,” he said. “We just have his first crop of yearlings now. His first three dams bred 21 Group winners and we are very hopeful.

“Some of his stock might run as a two-year-old, some might wait until three. It all depends how they mature. You don’t quite know what’s going to happen. You are just waiting for the phone to ring. All you do is live in hope.

“But we are very impressed with his young stock.”

Desideratum did all his running in France but, when it comes to racing romance, you can find it closer to home at Beechwood Grange Stud.