Melbourne Racing Club general manager Jake Norton claims vet made threatening calls
A MELBOURNE Racing Club exec has complained to police after allegedly receiving a series of menacing phone calls traced to a world-renowned horse vet.
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A MELBOURNE Racing Club exec has complained to police after allegedly
receiving a series of menacing phone calls traced to a world-renowned horse vet.
It’s understood a complaint was made to Caulfield Police earlier this year by MRC racing general manager Jake Norton after he received several threatening voicemails.
The messages sounded like they were out of a gangster flick — “we’re coming to get you” type of thing.
Glenn Robertson-Smith, a racehorse and equine veterinarian for more than 30 years, declined to comment to Page 13 about the matter.
It’s understood Robertson-Smith met with Norton to issue a grovelling mea culpa recently before allegedly singing like a canary about others involved.
Page 13 reported last year that Norton was caught up in a brouhaha with Age racing writer Patrick Bartley, who after a few frothies at a spring racing lunch let rip on Norton, spewing anti-Semitic comments, despite Norton not being Jewish.
Bartley has been in a long-running dispute with the club and was banned from the Caulfield Cup meeting two years ago after a series of articles in which he criticised the state of the track and the way the club behaved.
At the time Norton took exception to what he said were Bartley’s racist taunts and complained to The Age, with editor Alex Lavelle telling Page 13 it was an “internal matter.”
Page 13 hears Bartley, a long-lunching friend of Robertson-Smith, again fronted Fairfax executives this week.
Norton and the MRC declined to comment on Friday. Victorian police said they could make “no comment at this stage”.
Odds-on it won’t be remaining an “internal” matter this time around.
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