Bailey faces second day at cobalt appeals
Racing Victoria chief steward Terry Bailey has backed the regulator’s head vet regarding cobalt.
Bailey will continue giving evidence in four trainers’ appeals against their cobalt disqualifications on Wednesday, before Racing Victoria chief vet Dr Brian Stewart takes the stand.
Victoria brought in a cobalt threshold in April 2014, ahead of the national rule introduced in January 2015.
Giving evidence in the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Tuesday, Bailey said he worked on the cobalt threshold proposal with Stewart.
“What Brian left me with no doubt was it was performance enhancing and it was an issue,” Bailey said.
“Time has shown he hasn’t got it wrong.”
The threshold was initially set at 200 micrograms per litre of urine but has now been halved.
Danny O’Brien, Mark Kavanagh and father-and-son trainers Lee and Shannon Hope are trying to overturn their lengthy cobalt disqualifications.
A key issue is whether the labs involved were properly accredited to test for cobalt at the time.