Trip To Paris is likely to have his sights lowered after finishing tailed off in Saturday's Dubai Gold Cup.

Winner of the Gold Cup at Royal Ascot in 2015 before finishing fourth in that year's Melbourne Cup, Ed Dunlop's star stayer has suffered injury problems since and only made it to the track three times last season.

The six-year-old made his first start in six months at Meydan last weekend but finished 13th of 14 runners in ground softer than ideal.

"We did not want any rain out in Dubai, but unfortunately we got a lot of it and Trip To Paris never went with any zest in the Dubai Gold Cup," the trainer told his website www.edunlop.com.

"It is back to the drawing board with him and we will freshen him up before dropping him in class, hopefully we can reignite some spark in him."