In the Crown Guineas pre-race parade glorious Denman prowled the mounting yard like a big black cat, at peace with the world, unflappable, invincible.

Denman dozed through last Saturday's lightning storm in his box as King Pulse went bonkers right in front of him.

Something as harmless as a seven-day delay would surely do nothing to loosen his grip on the race he simply had to win.

But while Denman prowled, his trainer, Peter Snowden, a worrier at the best of times, developed a mounting case of the jitters.

Snowden had his star perfect a week ago. In a delicate game of nuances and the famous body clock that says horses are primed to minutes rather than days and weeks, the black horse who slept through a hail storm was a week out of whack. His clock was spinning.

As Snowden fretted, Bart Cummings, the original owner of that clock, may well have been pondering the value of a week.

Fifteen minutes later, after Bart's once-erratic colt Rock Classic had swept past frazzled Denman to claim one of three Group 1s on the Australian calendar Bart hadn't yet won, the full weight of that unscheduled but unavoidable week hit home.

Snowden put on a brave beaten face. Denman's career will not be defined by one loss, but this was his second acid test - the first was the Caulfield Guineas - and his second flop.

Snowden insisted he had no gripes, no excuses, but offered some all the same.

That darned week, he said, was the difference.

"You don't want to make excuses and, believe me, I'm not making any, he was beaten by a better horse on the day," he said, rejecting talk the Guineas was the be-all and end-all for Denman and Darley.

Cummings was in great form as Rock Classic returned to scale.

He revelled in the story of Rock Classic's breeder and part-owner Paul Whelan, a one-time Carr Government NSW police minister. The Whelans had abandoned a christening in Sydney to make their second trip to Flemington in seven days.

"I call him the chief constable," said a beaming Cummings as he searched through the throng to find the lucky ex-minister, whose first horse had just become his first Group 1 winner.

Cummings said Rock Classic had been a steady work in progress.

Time - that clock - had made all the difference.

"We've been working on him for 14 months, working on all the little problems. If you work the problems out you get the result," he said.

"We did whatever made him happy."

Cummings said his confidence grew as the race grew closer, then remained high, as he continued to tinker through the seven-day delay.

Forty minutes later the field paraded for the Australian Cup. Another race delayed a week, that clock ticking.

Nick Williams, son of Lloyd, committed the ultimate, almost always disastrous, racing sin.

Williams "early crowed" Zipping.

"I just can't see him getting beat. I know it sounds ridiculous. I know this horse is eight, but we've just never had him going any better, not in his whole life," Williams Jr said.

Bart's pair Sirmione and Moatize paraded well but by the precision of Bart's horse clock, they may also have been a run short. Another week, another storm and they'd be perfect.

A few minutes later young Williams would have been cursing his confident crow as Sirmione charged at Zipping, just as Zipping charged to the front.

Sirmione, who'd raced twice after a long injury break, loomed but then flat-lined as the pair hit the wire.

The photo went Zipping's way. Just this once, the perfect preparation beat not just Sirmione, but the early crow.

Moatize, who'd also raced just twice from injury, ran on doggedly into third.

Nick Williams near-shook as he spoke of the win.

"I thought Sirmione had him, in fact, I'm sure Sirmione had him," he said.

"I can't speak highly enough of this horse. It's very difficult to beat Bart at the best of times. The best we could do with a horse at the peak of his career was beat him by an inch."

Bart did not appear in the runner's up stall.

Instead, he watched from the winner's bar, still celebrating a Crown Guineas win he had attributed to time and patience.

When Sirmione's number came up second, Bart made a quip to his group.

In mock exasperation, he said: "What did I do wrong?"

The answer, of course, is that Bart did his best; beaten by the clock in one race, a winner because of it in another.