Nash Rawiller has taken all before him again this season but fellow-hoop Danny Nikolic has had a much tougher time of it, as Sky Sports Radio's racing expert ROD GALLEGOS explains.

What a remarkable performance jockey, Nash Rawiller, is producing. Despite the limitations his weight imposes he still leads the Sydney jockeys premiership with 72 metropolitan successes.

His overall performance is embossed further with a total of 9 Group 1 winners so far this season and the possibility of reaching double figures in the Winter Stakes when he partners the Gai Waterhouse-trained Gold Water.

Quite frankly, Gold Water must be a top chance. She has a most consistent form-line with five consecutive minor placings of which a slender defeat by Metal Bender in the 2020-metre Doomben Cup is the latest.

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THE demonising of jockey Danny Nikolic during a prolonged probe of stewards is a sad aspect to one of the most perplexing pieces of racecourse drama in recent times.

Before any finality has been reached, Nikolic, a talented jockey who has enjoyed some dazzling highs in racing, has struggled to secure the quantity and quality of mounts he would have expected under normal circumstances.

So much for that relevant rejoinder: innocent until proven guilty!

Unlike most stewards inquiries that generally relate to a horse being ridden badly or erratically, this one is much more complex and has had more ups and downs, twists and turns than a switchback railway.

Perplexities persist in as much that there has been no qualms or official charges relating to any of Nikolic's actual riding performances in the races under scrutiny. In fact, evidence related to races that was to be provided by chief steward, Terry Bailey, was deemed to be inadmissible judicially.

One of the salient issues appears to be the content of conversations Nikolic had with a professional punter, Neville Clements.

Provided there is nothing illegal in the conversations, why should jockeys, in effect, be quarantined from conversing with particular people?

Surely racing authorities won't initiate its own version of the Consorting Squad which was formed in the 1920s in the words of the time "to prevent criminals from consorting with known prostitutes and persons of ill-repute".

Mind you, the Consorting Squad since has been disbanded and consorting laws have been repealed.

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ON TO happier issues, the Brisbane Winter Carnival winds up on Saturday with the final Group One of the season, the Winter Stakes for fillies and mares.

Considering the length of the carnival, it maintained the interest and excitement. Even last Saturday's Ipswich Cup meeting, geographically a provincial meeting, had the equivalent to a "house full" sign up.

Happily the weather was kind to Brisbane with only the Doomben Ten Thousand day dogged by morning rain but it had fined up by the business end of the day during the afternoon.

There have been many highlights but undoubtedly the rampant recovery of Dariana rates highest. From villain one Saturday when, as a short-priced favourite, she became tangled up in the barrier stalls and took no part in the Oaks she rebounded in the most positive fashion a week later to donkey-lick the male opposition in the Queensland Derby.

A staying star of the future?

Well, remember Ethereal, she won the Queensland Oaks in 2001 and in the spring that year joined elite company as winner of the Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup double?

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NOW, some attention on the harness code with the lucrative Breeders Challenge meeting being run at Tabcorp Park Menangle this Sunday. The NSW TAB has First 4 and BIG6 jackpots on the meeting as part of a near $250,000 in jackpots this weekend. The Victorian TAB, meanwhile, has more than $120,000 in jackpots this weekend including a $78,111 Flemington BIG6 jackpot.