Yesterday he faced the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary board and today it’s back to business for top jockey Dan Nikolic.
Nikolic’s case is sure to headline sports news stories tomorrow, and Flemington’s ‘Super Saturday’ looks like the perfect refuge for one of Australia’s top jockeys.
In the first race on tomorrows star studded card, Nikolic will be aboard highly promising colt ‘Not A Pretender’ in the Thoroughbred Breeders Stakes, run over 1200m.
Not A Pretender is coming off an impressive last start win at Caulfield a week ago, winning the restricted Inglis Premier for 2 year olds worth $250,000. Though struggling with the Melbourne way of racing, he still spaced his rivals winning comfortably by 4.3 lengths.
Even though the colt wore blinkers, when interviewed post race Nikolic explained that, “She was on one rein throughout the race and I thought she was quite good because she did everything wrong”.
The Caulfield race is sure to have benefited the son of ‘Royal Academy’, and racing down Flemington’s spacious straight can only be a positive.
Hopefully Nikolic can put the past week behind him and get back to what he does best, riding winners, and creating headlines for the right reasons.
Not A Pretender is listed as second favourite at $4.60 behind the Blue Diamond runner up ‘Shaaheq’ at $1.60.
Written by Isaac Chaplin
