‘Sleepy Bob’ a jockey always out in front
Robert James Skelton, jockey: b Cobden December 28, 1934, m Maureen Anderton, 1957, 2s, 2d; d Melbourne, August 19, aged 81.
When the skies opened over Flemington racecourse half-anhour before the 1976 Melbourne Cup, Bob Skelton knew his prayers had been answered.
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.
He was 41 when he rode Van Der Hum in the most dramatic edition of Australasia’s most famous horse race. Van Der Hum was a Kiwi-trained farm horse who needed a wet track. The wetter the better.
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 in the nick of time.
‘‘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 retellings of the big event.
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. ‘‘I was just covered in mud, silt and water and I was bitterly exhausted, but exhilarated.’’
If ever anyone deserved the exhilaration and 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 that country’s biggest race.
The vilification came because he was seen as too gentle on horses, not riding them vigorously enough in a finish. It’s ironic now that his ability to relax horses, though not his particular longironed style, is the message being taught to New Zealand apprentice jockeys.
Noel Harris, whose early career coincided with Skelton’s prime, is the northern apprentice master and uses the ‘‘less stick, be kind to the horse’’ message to budding jockeys. ‘‘If you cuddle up to them and coax them along, they’ll keep giving back to you. Bob got horses to respond to him.’’
Skelton was considered a master in staying races. He won 20 races – still an Australasian record – at the 3200m (two-mile) distance, including the trio of successive victories in the Wellington Cup (1961-63) on his favourite horse, Great Sensation.
He won the Wellington Cup five times, the New Zealand Cup three times, and the Auckland Cup twice, with one of the latter rides being on Rose Mellay, trained by his brother Errol.
In all, he rode 2129 winners in a career spanning four decades. He won the New Zealand jockeys’ premiership nine times – his older Bill won seven. They were a dominant force in New Zealand racing. Bill, now retired and living in Levin, rode 2179 winners, 2156 of them in New Zealand – a national record at the time of his retirement in 1977.
But they were not the only Skeltons to be jockeys. Brothers Frank, Errol and Max were more than handy also.
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 joined Lionel Pratt’s stable at Orari in South Canterbury as a 13-year-old. Bob joined him there a few years later, worried that he would end up in a West Coast coalmine otherwise.
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 and after Bob completed his apprenticeship, he 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, to Victoria where his career enjoyed a new lease of life, before retiring in 1987. The ride offers had dried up and ‘‘Maureen told me I was zigging when I should have been zagging’’, he joked. He took up training at Mornington, on Victoria’s southern coast, and had some success, particularly with Oregon Seal, city winner for him.
Skelton considered Trentham, in Upper Hutt, his favourite course and he will be forever remembered there for his association with the big-hearted Great Sensation.
There was hardly a dry eye on the course when he led the mighty mare Show Gate back to the birdcage on foot after she broke down but still won the Trentham Stakes there in 1977. He was also a regular aboard the indomitable sprinter-miler Grey Way, winner of 51 races, and rated Lilt the best sprinter he rode.
Skelton was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1978. He and Bill were inducted into the NZ Sports Hall of Fame and the NZ Racing Hall of Fame.
Harris said Skelton was always generous with his advice to jockeys. ‘‘He had a lovely demeanour, as did all the Skeltons. Bob was always willing to help out people and give advice.’’
He also loved having a chat. He was a prominent figure on the annual Melbourne Cup tour that goes to various cities and towns in Australia and New Zealand and never tired of telling his Van Der Hum story.
Maureen, who had advised him to chase up the ride on Van Der Hum, died in 2000. GREG TOURELLE Sources: Noel Harris, Tayler Strong, NZPA, Melbourne radio stations RSN and SEN, NZ Racing Hall of Fame.