Jo Baynes sees herself predominantly as a pre-trainer and regards the win of Envious at Gore on Sunday, her first as a trainer, as a one-off.

“My job is just to get our horses ready to go to our trainers Tony Stratford or Derek Balle,” Baynes said, “but Envious was coming back from a long layoff and she's a real professional, a trainers dream. I'm not sure if I'm training her or she's training me.”

Baynes says she's been around horses for as long as she can remember and even been described as horse crazy.

“I did A & P shows as a kid and barrell racing when I was in Wanaka, then got involved in harness racing when I came down here,” she said.

As Joelle Calder, the partner of Kenny Baynes, she became a breeder and owner and held a licence to train, but used it sparingly. Runners in her name had raced only 10 times in two seasons prior to Sunday and she has no plans to expand.

“I'll keep training Envious, otherwise I prefer to leave raceday to the professionals,” said Baynes, who married Kenny last May.

The pair bred Envious, a Changeover mare out of Especial Franco who was dam of the tidy performers Elation Franco, Equaliser and Expressionist. Kenny had been unsuccessful when attempting to buy both Equaliser and Expressionist at the yearling sales but picked up the mare after she had been advertised in the Harness Weekly.

Trained by Tony Stratford and driven by Dexter Dunn, Envious won on debut at Ascot Park in January 2015 as a two year old. After the win, Stratford considered taking her to Alexandra Park for the Young Gun series but illness intervened and she was eventually put aside. She had win and three seconds in her first five starts as a three year old before being struck down again.

“She got a virus, we gave her plenty of time to get over it,” Baynes said.

Envious was a comprehensive winner on Sunday in an impressive grass track time of 2:17.0, with Dunn back in the sulky.