Victoria Racing chief steward Terry Bailey says he arranged for security at his home after claiming disqualified jockey Danny Nikolic had threatened him.
Bailey was giving evidence at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) hearing of an appeal by Nikolic against a two-year ban from racing.
Nikolic missed out on plum spring racing carnival rides after he was found guilty of two charges of making threats to Bailey at the Seymour race meeting on September 4.
Nikolic had earlier lost his bid for a stay of proceedings to enable him to ride while he prepared for an appeal.
Bailey repeated his evidence that Nikolic had approached him on the course at Seymour and said to him: “Keep your eyes on the road Terry”.
The jockey maintained he made the remark in a joking manner after that of a television advertisement but Bailey said on Wednesday he was “rattled” by the comment.
He said Nikolic also later said to him: “We’ve all got families c… and we know where yours lives c…”.
Bailey said that comment was delivered with “a lot of venom”.
He told the hearing before Judge Michael McNamara that he had phoned Racing Victoria’s integrity services manager Dale Brown and asked if he could provide “some security at my house”.
Nikolic denies he made the second comment and has maintained that it was Bailey who had threatened him, promising to end his riding career.
Bailey said he had stayed in Euroa that night because he had “an important matter” to attend to the following morning but said he looked in his car rear vision mirror several times while driving back to his motel.
Nikolic is also at the centre of race-fixing allegations by Victoria Police.
He was disqualified from being involved in racing by the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary (RAD) Board last month.
The RAD Board outed him for two years under the rules of racing dealing with improper conduct, and one year for bringing racing into disrepute, with the sentences to be served concurrently.
