Terry Bailey will hope for a quieter 2016 after a tumultuous year as Racing Victoria’s chief steward

TERRY Bailey packed his bags for an extended holiday about seven weeks ago. He deserved it, for it had been a tumultuous year for Racing Victoria’s chief steward.

Derby Day Race 1, The Carbine Club Stakes, won by Mahuta (4) ridden by Brad Rawiller. Chief Steward Terry Bailey. DerbyDay15 Picture Jay Town.

FOR most, the Christmas holidays signify the end of one year, the beginning of another; a clean desk, a clean slate.

Terry Bailey packed his bags for an extended holiday about seven weeks ago. He deserved it.

It had been a tumultuous year for Racing Victoria’s chief steward.

Someone shot at his front door. The important cobalt cases presented by him and his team of stewards were finally being tested by the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board.

Accusations were made against Racing Victoria’s integrity team, headed by Bailey and Dayle Brown, through the star-studded, sometimes sensational cases that ran right up until Christmas — Danny O’Brien and Mark Kavanagh, then Peter Moody.

The Moody case is not yet reached penalty stage — although it is close — and Kavanagh, O’Brien and their accusations against the chief steward are off to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal some time soon.

So Bailey has returned from holidays still lumping last year’s baggage.

O’Brien and Kavanagh, who were dealt four and three-year disqualifications by the RADB, are pulling out all stops to convince VCAT to see their world differently than the RADB.

They are picking away at the edges of their convictions. It would seem improbable that VCAT would see the fundamentals any differently than the board that wiped them out.

The evidence was the evidence. The trainers embarked on a regimen of a drug they either knew contained concentrated cobalt or should have known if they didn’t. Bound by their training licences, they do not seemingly have naivety as a defence on appeal.

Race days were the least of Bailey’s concerns in 2015. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

But they do have an allegation that stewards failed in their duty of care and a hope it muddies the waters enough to have their disqualifications overturned.

In a nutshell, the trainers say Bailey and Co knew their horses were returning elevated and illegal levels of cobalt long before Bailey told them. O’Brien says he’d have stopped using “vitamin complex’’ drips, and would never have had even one positive, had stewards alerted trainers to cobalt spikes many months earlier, to protect the integrity of the next race, not necessarily the trainers.

There are no guarantees, of course, that the VCAT judge will accept the logic of O’Brien’s submission.

Bailey and one or two other stewards will be called for cross examination, something that did not occur during the Kavanagh and O’Brien RADB hearings, or Moody’s.

Bailey may well have been champing at the bit to clarify, counting down the days during his summer break. He may have a reasonable clarification. Racing Victoria’s silence, when pressed about the stewards and the rules regarding notification of drug irregularities, may in fact reveal confidence.

At VCAT, Bailey will at least be able to unmuzzle himself, a chance he will have again when Moody eventually finds himself at VCAT (that’s if he challenges an inevitable disqualification) and Bailey is called to explain another procedural query regarding the splitting of Lidari’s B sample.

The trainers hope desperately to prove the stewards interfered or withheld enough information to have career-crushing penalties quashed. They might be dreaming. The notification time of positive tests and the splitting of Lidari’s sample might be explainable or irrelevant.

Time will tell.