One of five brothers to ride, R.J Skelton would become a master jockey over the 3200m distance

ROBERT JAMES SKELTON (MBE) was a legendary New Zealand jockey who competed from the 1950s through the 1980s and etched his name as one of the finest riders the country ever produced. Greymouth-born Skelton was one of five jockey brothers, the eldest of whom, Bill, established a premiership-winning pattern that his younger brother was to emulate.

The champion jockey, who was raised in tiny Cobden on the West Coast and took up horse riding to avoid going down the local coalmine, had done it all in New Zealand racing, but trying to impress the Australian racing critics was another thing. Although they had ponies as kids in Cobden, which is separated from Greymouth by the Grey River, horse racing had never been mentioned in the family until Bill Skelton joined Lionel Pratt's stable at Orari in South Canterbury as a 13-year-old. Bob joined him there a few years later. After serving his apprenticeship, Skelton become the stable rider for the Wingatui training partnership of Jim Wilson and Bert Powell during the 1954-55 season and was to be based there for the next 12 years.

They had vastly different styles: Bill was later known as "Bustling Billy" for his ability to quickly get his horses in a prime position, while Bob was known as "Sleepy Bob" for more relaxed reasons. The winners started coming after Bob completed his apprenticeship and shifted to Wingatui near Dunedin, where he married Maureen, a sister of Brian Anderton who was to become a top jockey, trainer and studmaster. He later moved to Auckland and in 1979, he headed to Victoria where his career enjoyed a new lease of life.

In total Bob Skelton won 2129 races. His first two-mile winner was LANCASTER in the 1954 Great Autumn Handicap and 30 years later, he was still among the leading jockeys. Renowned for his uncanny ability to judge pace, Skelton was regarded as the most successful rider of two-mile stayers in Australasia.

Among his many major race wins, R.J Skelton rode GREAT SENSATION to three victories in the Wellington Cup in 1961-63 and won the Auckland Cup on ROSE MELLAY in 1974 and again in 1977 on ROYAL CADENZA. Bob also claimed victory on PRINCESS MELLAY in the 1971 NZ Cup. In 1976, he rode VAN DER HUM to victory in Australia's most prestigious race, the Melbourne Cup, and ten years later rode RISING FEAR into second place in the 1986 Cup. He was also successful in completing a double in the Perth Cup on MAGISTRATE in 1980 and 1981. Overall, Bob won twenty 3200m and two mile races. Other great New Zealand horses he was associated with included the champion race mare SHOW GATE, STAR BELLE and the ‘Washdyke Wonder', GREY WAY.

GREY WAY's Easter Handicap win at Ellerslie in 1977 under 60.5kg was one of his finest memories of one of the truly great careers in the saddle. He'd tried to pull Grey Way out of a gap that wasn't really there at the 175m because he felt it was too dangerous. Grey Way and Skelton were behind a wall of probably the finest horses that ever made up an Easter Handicap field, including KIWI CAN, TUDOR LIGHT and VICE REGAL. Great horses and great riders. No one was giving an inch. At exactly the wrong moment for Skelton's nerve, Grey Way spied an opening - well, enough daylight for Grey Way to believe it was an opening and he charged, despite Skelton's opposite instructions down the reins. "It was the ultimate to be on a horse that wanted to win for you” Bob later said.

Bob Skelton's 1976 Melbourne Cup victory on Van der Hum is a legendary tale. Skelton went to the traditional Racing Mass in Melbourne two days before the Cup and prayed for rain. His wife Maureen and family and anyone he asked prayed for rain too. It came just in the nick of time - and in bucketloads.

"I'd never seen rain like it. It was eerie, it was frightening, and I was grinning like a Cheshire cat," Skelton recalled in one of his numerous re-tellings of the big event. 

There were 78,500 people at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day in 1976. Those still living hold indelible memories of their visit to the historic course on the day mother nature threw a tantrum. Within minutes the light was failing rapidly, the thunder was starting to roll in, and the lightning was jumping all over the sky. The noise on the roof was deafening and there were sheets of galvanised iron sagging under the sheer weight of water.

Early in the race, Skelton pulled his goggles off and immediately got hit in one eye by a clod of mud. "It was like driving a car with no windscreen wipers on a very muddy road." Van Der Hum proved too strong in those conditions and horse and jockey returned to the mounting enclosure to acclaim. Some say he swum to victory. Skelton was covered in mud, silt and water and bitterly exhausted afterwards, but exhilarated.

If ever anyone deserved the praise that comes from winning a Melbourne Cup it was Bob Skelton, known in the racebooks and newspapers and by dollar each-way punters as RJ Skelton. With his loose-reined riding style and preference to encourage a horse with his hands rather than the whip, he had been vilified for years in the Australian press, so it was vindication to win the country's biggest race. The criticism arose due to the perception that he exhibited excessive leniency towards horses, refraining from riding them with sufficient vigor.

In the 1978 Queen's Birthday Honours, Skelton was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire, for services to horse racing as a jockey. Overall he won nine New Zealand Riding Premierships. Including the Melbourne & Perth Cups he also won numerous major races in Australia such as the Toorak Handicap, The George Adams, Feehan Stakes, Turnbull Stakes, and Hotham Handicap, Liston Stakes, Duke of Nortfolk Stakes (3200m), Memsie Stakes, Easter Cup, and Victoria Handicap.

Skelton retired in the 1987–88 season. He was inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1995, and into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame in 2006. In 2007 the Auckland Racing Club voted him as their 8th official "Legend of Ellerslie" where he won nine jockey premierships at Ellerslie Racecourse between 1955 and 1976.

Following his riding career he took up training and was fortunate to train and own with friends a little mare (14.2 hands) called OREGON SEAL who won 9 races including the Tesio Stakes. After her racing career she became a broodmare and had 8 foals - 8 winners with 3 stakes winners including OREGON SPIRIT, TALENT SHOW (Perth Cup), and OREGON'S DAY (Redoutes Choice Stakes, Alexandra Stakes, Frances Tressady Stakes, and the Hollindale Cup).

Bob was never a stylist in the mode of one of the greats. He rode often with a loop in the rein, but he knew how the horse was travelling and he was one of our great staying riders. Perhaps, typically, he continued to ride work into his 70s in Melbourne. The word horseman can at times be over-used. That was Bob Skelton. Amiable, caring and as friendly as a labrador. Skelton died in Melbourne on 19th August 2016 aged 81.