AS THE sun cast elongated shadows across the deserted parade ring John Bary emerged with a bottle of beer in his hand from the stabling near the Cheval Room.
His eyes showing the rigours of not only a stressful race day but an entire week of trials and tribulations, the Hastings trainer of champion Jimmy Choux appeared to be enjoying a sense of fleeting equanimity.
Bary will be the first to admit he's not in the same league as Waikato breeder/trainer Graeme Rogerson.
At 41 and just three years of work experience up his sleeve, Bary certainly has some catching up to do with 64-year-old Rogerson of Melbourne Cup pedigree.
That is not to say Bary's words do not carry any weight even if his career is in its infancy. He did, after all, emphatically state Jimmy Choux would win the big one.
So did Rogerson, putting his 4-year-old novice gelding Baldovino on the group 1 pedestal.
Baldovino didn't, finishing dead last in Windsor Park Plate on Saturday, while Jimmy Choux played out according to the script.
The day indubitably belonged to Bary.
"My opinion is I had a very good horse and I've been vindicated today with a very good win so we'll just carry on and do what we always do," he said.
His ability under scrutiny from a scribe last month, Bary reacted venomously before Jimmy Choux and Jonathan Riddell finished runners-up behind Mufhasa and Sam Spratt a fortnight ago in the Makfi Challenge Stakes here.
Such criticism would have had lesser trainers frantically trying to pull themselves out of a mind swamp but not Bary. He admirably rolled with the punches. For him, Saturday's win in the group 1 Windsor Park Plate was another uppercut to the detractors.
"He's [Jimmy Choux] done that [won] well today. He's made a statement.
"He's had a good run in front and behind them and just out-raced them, really," Bary said.
"He's got a lot in him in the Cox Plate and Hong Kong so we'll carry down that path," he said, reiterating that owners Richard and Liz Wood might want to part with him but, thankfully, it wasn't his call.
Sunline trainer Trevor McKee, father of Mufhasa trainer Stephen, had told him those who have a good horse would find the public second-guessing their every move.
"Whether you're coaching the All Blacks or training a horse, it's only people's opinions."
The signs were promising on Saturday morning when Bary let a bucking Jimmy Choux out in the paddock.
"He was bright and the work we did on him on Tuesday went very well."
Bary's mother, Ann Bary, 72, of Hastings, who religiously attends all three Rush Munro's Hawke's Bay Spring Racing Carnival meetings, wasn't feeling too well but phoned him to say how proud she and the family were of him.
Ann's family won the Melbourne Cup in 1916 when jockey F Foley rode the M Hobbs-trained Sasanof to victory by more than two lengths, missing the race record by half a second with a time of 3min 27.75sec to pocket a modest £9205 by today's standards.
Her grandfather, the late Wilfred Gatonby Stead, of Christchurch, owned Sasanof. The brown gelding, then a 3-year-old, became the second Kiwi horse to win the cup.
For Ann today her most-prized possession is the three-handle, three-legged rose bowl-shaped Melbourne Cup, the first gold one to be awarded to the winners.
It's under John Bary's care.
Bary's other signature horse, The Hombre, will compete in the final carnival event, the $300,000 group 1 NZ Bloodstock Insurance, on October 1, but in a minor 1200m race since returning from Brisbane last month.
While he would like to work with Jimmy Choux's 3-year-old brother, Choux Shine, Bary is mindful he has 30 other horses in his stable to train.
Wood said Bary didn't learn his trade in the traditional father-son mould.
"John has the ability to think totally outside the square and differently from what a lot of other trainers do, brought up in a family environment."
While he and Bary discussed matters he didn't place any pressure on the trainer.
"He's got a Rolls Royce engine and he needs to tune it for the day, that's all."