Jockey Danny Nikolic denies shooting at home of Racing Victoria chief steward Terry Bailey

UPDATE: TERRY Bailey said it was not for him to decide if disqualified jockey Danny Nikolic should be allowed to ride again.

Former band jockey Danny Nikolic keeps fit.

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TERRY Bailey said it was not for him to decide if disqualified jockey Danny Nikolic should be allowed to ride again.

The chief steward said the decision to refuse Nikolic’s licence application was made by Racing Victoria on the grounds he was not a fit and proper person.

“Danny’s exercised his right to take that matter to VCAT for appeal and we’ll let that play out,” Bailey told RSN on Tuesday.

When asked if he believed Nikolic was the person who had fired shots into his Templestowe home last year, Bailey said the matter was in the hands of Victoria Police.

“It’s not really for me to speculate who did it, or who was behind it, we will leave that for the police to do their job,” he said.

“From memory, during that period there was a spate of shootings and just because the incident at my house hasn’t been solved, it gives some of the narks in the industry an opportunity to run some stories — they are all false, they are upsetting to my family, but at the end of the day I’m immune to it after 30 years in the game.

“I’ve got full confidence that Victoria Police will get to the bottom of it.”

Nikolic told the Herald Sun he did not pull the trigger and had never been questioned by police.

In regards to industry rumours, Bailey hit out at suggestions that the shooting was related to a personal issue.

“Absolutely not, it’s just a vicious rumour,” he said.

“In my line of work obviously you upset a few on the way through and those with an axe to grind seize the opportunity.

“That’s just something I’ve got to live with in the job.”

Danny Nikolic trains on the beach to keep fit while waiting to return to racing. Picture: David Caird.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald Sun, Nikolic vehemently denied any involvement in the firing of shots at Bailey’s home.

Asked if he was responsible, Nikolic said: “No.”

“It’s laughable,” he said, describing the shocking attack on the home of racing’s high-profile sheriff as a low act.

Bailey said his family was having takeaway on the back deck about 9.15pm on October 25 last year when they heard a loud cracking noise.

“We didn’t know what it was,” he said.

“The missus said, ‘stay put everybody’ and we did for a few minutes and the rest is history — half a dozen rounds through the front door.”

Bailey said it was lucky no one had been injured because the front door had been left open behind the fly screen door and the bullets had whistled through the house.

“It could have been a lot worse if one of the kids was walking by, or something like that,” he said.

Bailey said after the shots he had rushed out the front of his house with a wooden carving he had collected from Vanuatu.

“It was a heat of the moment reaction, a bit of anger that someone would do that on a Sunday night with your family,” he said.

Bailey said he had not had any feedback from Victoria Police in regards to investigations into the shooting, but admitted he had “beefed up security a bit”.

“But at the end of the day if they want to get you, they will get you,” he said.

Nikolic in action at Flemington.

Nikolic said police had not spoken to him about the incident.

“I never got a visit from the police. And I’m sure if anyone wanted to put two and two together and came up with four, that I’d be a person that they would want to question.

“But I’ve never been spoken to,” he said.

“But I’ll get spoken to about something that happened at the racecourse three years ago, involving a disagreement with another fellow jockey — it was a disagreement between two mates, and it actually went to court.

“Trivial things like that I get spoken to about.

“But if there was a shooting, why wouldn’t the police speak to me when they have spoken to me about everything else?”

The controversial jockey was banned from riding in 2012 for threatening Bailey at the Seymour races, with words including: “We’ve all got families, c---. We know where yours lives.”

A racing tribunal also found he said: “Keep your eyes on the road, Terry.”

Nikolic and Terry Bailey in Seymour.

In a letter from the Victoria Police Purana Taskforce, police told him there was insufficient evidence to take any action against him for the comments made to Bailey.

Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board chairman Brian Forrest said when banning the former top rider: “The language directed at Mr Bailey was not only grossly offensive to him, but worse, contained a sinister threat to his family — so much so that in the immediate aftermath Mr Bailey arranged security at his home for a week.’’

Nikolic said police had spoken to him about the execution-style murder of his ex-father-in-law Les Samba in Middle Park in 2011.

Shots were fired at the front door of Bailey’s home.

Bailey after shots were fired at his front door.

And in another letter from the Office of Public Prosecutions, police said that after reviewing allegations of race-fixing at Bendigo and Cranbourne in 2011, and Kyneton in 2012, no charges would be laid.

The Cranbourne race was won by Smoking Aces, ridden by Nikolic.

He was one of several racing identities investigated by police for allegedly conspiring to fix the outcome of the April 27 Cranbourne event.

Police investigating Samba’s murder also probed the claims.

Nikolic is trying to win a licence to ride after Racing Queensland and Racing Victoria rejected applications.

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— with Danny Russell ([e-mail])

Originally published as Jockey Danny Nikolic denies shooting at home of Racing Victoria chief steward Terry Bailey