"She galloped 600m in 36 seconds, which is a good horse's time at Ardmore Lodge where we train them and I was bloody annoyed.
"I asked my young rider, who is a hell of a smart girl who now works as a lawyer, she went so fast when we only wanted her to have an easy first ever gallop.
"But I was the one in the wrong, not her. It was about as slow as she could go. I didn't realise how special she was until that day because we had never even come close to asking her to run.
"I then realised that moment I knew we had something." That something was a gangly filly by a cheap stallion in Zed, a horse well bred but so lacking in commercial clout he mixed thoroughbred stud work with serving Clydesdales and hack mares.
From those humblest of beginnings comes one of the world's great race mares and a true New Zealand success story.
As soon as she hit the racetrack it was obvious Verry Elleegant was a little too shiny to be playing in the winter mud here.
She won her second ever start in August 2018 and the phone start ringing. Ironically the poor horse who finished second that day never won a race, cursed to run into a Melbourne Cup winner on a cold day at Ruakaka.
Verry Elleegant was sold soon after with shares retained by her breeder Don Goodwin and Bishara while an array of Aucklanders in former All Black Mark Carter, his brother John and sister Rachel and Auckland Racing Club director Tim Barry bought into the then filly along with some Aussie heavy hitters.
Transferred to Australia where the real money is she has grown from an impetuous three-year-old filly who was still good enough to win an Oaks to a world class mare who has now won 10 group ones including the Caulfield Cup before today's smashing of favourite Incentivise in the race that everybody really wants.
Bishara watched the Cup at home with his family, the Auckland-based owners separated like we all are in the region.
"Sure, not being there isn't ideal but we are all going through it up here aren't we," says Bishara.
The 55-year-old has a three-quarter sister to Verry Elleegant at home and now the rare honour of having once trained the winner of a Melbourne Cup which he still owned a small share in.
"It was a strange feeling to be honest," says Bishara.
"When she hit the lead at the 200m I can't tell you how it felt. I can't tell you without swearing. It feels just amazing." Breeder and still co-owner Don Goodwin also had to watch from home but he was more confident and even admitted to backing his mare, which probably seems like a drop in the bucket now compared with everybody's share of the A$4.4million winning stake.
Some of the Australian owners who took shares in Verry Elleegant also own runner-up Incentivise, so have the even rarer experience of part-owning the quinella of the Melbourne Cup from two different stables.
But this was a New Zealand success in almost every detail: bred, raised, trained, part-owned here and trained and ridden by ex-pats in Chris Waller and James McDonald.
And a win for that trackwork rider back in 2017, who Nick Bishara wrongly told off for letting Verry Elleegant go too fast.
What nobody knew then was Verry Elleegant's version of slow is just too fast for most other horses.
Fourteen wins and A$14.3million in stakes later, now we all know.
