Jockey Danny Nikolic has appealed Racing Victoria’s decision to refuse his riding license, having been banned for four years as the 41-year old looks to get back into the saddle.
Nikolic has been serving a ban for threatening behaviour towards race stewards, but in his current trial, insists that he is a changed man.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with psychologists. My attitude’s completely different towards authority,” he said.
He’s had plenty of issues along the way though, with allegations of bribery, deceit, race fixing and even violence coming up in his evaluation and trial.
Fellow jockey Mark Zahra has defended Nikolic in front of the Victorian Racing Commision, saying that he never received a bribe allegedly related to a fixed race back in 2011.
The race in question came under investigation in 2012 after Nikolic was suspected of giving cash to other riders so they could ease off on the final straight and allow his horse to win.
On top of this, the tribunal has also heard that Nikolic has been connected to a Sydney-based gambler linked to multiple match fixing cases in the NRL and is currently under investigation by the police.
Despite this, Nikolic’s lawyer has denied the claims and questions the amount of legitimate evidence in the issue, saying that the Racing Victoria lawyers have just been “fishing” for some kind of connection.
And just to add to the jockey’s woes, he has also been forced to deny having punched jockey Mark Pegus and grabbing a fistful of Pegus’ girlfriend’s hair during an altercation that turned violent.
Describing it as a “forceful push”, Nikolic says that his fist made contact with the face, but explained that it could barely be defined as a punch.
Despite all this, he’s confident of his chances to get back out onto the track after plenty of progress towards the improvement of his attitude and blanketing some of the anger issues that have hindered his reputation in the past.
If passed and allowed to ride again, Victoria and it’s racing commission won’t have to worry too much about Nikolic in the future after the jockey revealed his intentions to leave the area.
“Hopefully I’ll be able to get my career going interstate and I won’t have to ride in this jurisdiction,” he said fairly bluntly.
The hearing is expected to wrap up on Friday with a decision on his future decided on the day, unless the commission rules on a trial extension.
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