Terry Bailey denies Four Corners claims

Outgoing Racing Victoria chief steward Terry Bailey has denied he had earlier received information regarding the suspicions surrounding Robert Smerdon’s Aquanita stables.

Speaking an Monday’s Four Corners program, Flemington trainer Mather Ellerton said that he had raised concerns with stewards about ‘strange activities’ and possible race-day treatments made by Aquanita employees.

“If he did (inform stewards) I don’t recall the conversation personally unless he spoke to one of the other team,” Bailey told RSN on Tuesday.

“Mr Ellerton is a great trainer and I have great respect for him and he plays with a straight bat. As far as the rumours, we’d all heard the rumours. It was a matter of having the evidence and we eventually got that.”

“We had measures in place for a long time with Aquanita. I must admit it was brazen what they were doing at the track but we certainly weren’t sitting on our hands.”

“We knew the rumours and we were doing our best to get the evidence we needed. It has been shown in the past that unless you catch them red-handed, it can be pretty hard to prove.”

The Four Corners program on ABC also raised the question as to why Robert Smerdon’s phone was given back to the disgraced trainer before it could be forensically examined.

Terry Bailey conceded that he ‘maybe’ made a mistake giving the mobile phone back to Smerdon.

“Maybe we should have (confiscated the phone), in hindsight,” Bailey said.

“Knowing what we subsequently knew after Mr Nelligan’s phone was imaged, I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams would have expected what came up on his phone.”

Bailey, who leaves Racing Victoria this week to take up the job as chairman of stewards in Singapore, claimed that the industry is cleaner than it was a decade ago.

“Racing’s cleaner that it was 10 years ago, it is cleaner than it was five years ago and even 12 months ago,” he said. “Yes, we are getting better at stamping illegal practices out.

“I’ve seen most integrity measures around the world during my time in Victoria and I can assure you, ours is world class.”