Robert's first ride was on Billy Bumps, who fell in a Leicester hunter chase on March 4, 1985.
His last ride came when finishing third on Barnane Walk in the Axminster Carpets handicap Hurdle at Wincanton on April 27, 2001.
Between those two dates, he rode 115 winners before turning to training. He then became Clerk of the Course at both Warwick and Towcester.
Robert was born at King's Caple, Ross-on-Wye, on January 3, 1967.
Here his parents owned a 300-acre strawberry farm and Robert, after leaving school, worked on the farm before taking a job at a local livery stable.
He had already been well-grounded in horse-riding having, like so many other would-be-jockeys, started out in a pony club before graduating to point-to-points.
Robert spent some time with James Bethnall at Didcot, then - with his parents' soft fruit farm in mind - took a management course at Cirencester's Royal Agriculture College.
Sometime after that he ran into Peter Scudamore, who lived locally and arranged for Robert to start work for Martin Pipe - but with the yard's five conditional licences already allocated, rides were hard to come by.
It was for Jenny Pitman that he rode his first winner.
And what a winner it was!
At Aintree on Grand National day, Robert got home on Pitman's Molojec and found himself returning to the paddock in between two mounted policemen.
Then, swapping strawberry picking for the United States, he spent the summer working for Atlantic City trainer Pat Byrne and Michael Dickinson in Maryland.
By Christmas 1987 and back in England, he began to consider turning professional.
The following February, on the recommendation of Richard Dunwoody, he joined the stable of David Nicholson where, given his conditional status, he did well to ride six winners from his first 101 rides.
Then, on Saturday, May 14, he suffered a crunching fall from Royal Effigy at Warwick.
Robert was leading at the second last when he came down. The fall itself did little damage: not so Lightning Wind, the mount of Charlie Mann, who tripped over the prostrate Royal Effigy. Lightning Wind crashed down on top of Robert; the unfortunate jockey's right femur was broken in seven places.
Robert was out for a year.
He returned to action on Saturday, February 25, 1989, riding Lisaleen Lady at Kempton.
Robert was once again badly injured., this time at Stratford during the 1991 season. He was then out for a further six months, nursing three compressed vertebrae in his neck.
He rode in two Grand Nationals: 1992 New Halen for Paul James. New Halen refused & unseated rider Robert at the 19th - hardly surprising since a loose horse was running up & down the fence at the time.
Then along came Trinitro, om which Robert had earlier won the Norwegian Grand National. (Robert rode two winners from 33 rides in Norway).
It was decided to send the horse across for the Grand National proper at Aintree, and that Robert would keep the ride.
Came the day and Trinitro, unused to such vast crowds, freaked out and bolted down to the start. Robert, with just one winner behind him that season, knew it would be a miracle if Trinitro proved to be number two.
He was right - the horse came down at the first fence!
Robert also rode in two Tophams, one Becher & one John Parrett Chase over the Aintree fences.
His last - and 115th - winner came on Long Room Lady (a fortnight after his first fence Aintree exit on Trinitro). This brought his season's total of winners to just two and when, a fortnight later, he took yet another bad fall, puncturing a lung and fracturing ribs, at Uttoxeter, the writing was on the wall.
He took his final ride on Dandonell at Taunton on April 20, 2001, then, aged 34, he quit.
More than 300 friends gathered at his surprise farewell party, which continued until 4.30 am. "I don't think I've ever been so emotional," he said.
Robert reckons that to be comfortable, a jockey requires 200 rides and 20 winners a season; in his best, he managed 220 rides and 17 winners. He would tick over financially in the summer by working on his parent's fruit farm.
It would be a grave injustice to even hint that his appointments as clerk came under the `jobs for the boys' category. For the truth is that, aware his name no longer featured on most trainers' long-lists when it came to rides, and also that his limited media work was unlikely to progress beyond a minor supplement to a main salary, he had been posting off applications for most vacancies with a racing connection for the best part of five years.
He says: "I suppose the nearest I came to anything remotely associated with my present job was when I sent in my CV to the Jockey Club for the inspector of courses vacancy that was filled by Peter Hobbs.
"To be frank, while I was riding it certainly hadn't been an ambition to do what I'm doing. However, I'm fascinated by it now because there are so many aspects.
"It was in January that Warwick's chairman Jerry Dennis asked me to visit him for a chat. Believe me, after firing off all those applications, it boosts the confidence no end when someone actually wants you to come and see them. I was flattered.
"The position at Warwick was part-time, two or three days a week, but I was advised similar opportunities may arise within Racecourse Holdings Trust, and when Charlie Moore left Nottingham I took his place."
Inescapably, there are frequent exchanges between clerks of the courses and trainers when ground conditions deteriorate, and Robert believes totally honest going reports can go some way to defusing such confrontations.
"I promise trainers I'll give the going as accurately as possible," he says. "But it can be difficult at times. At Warwick the other week it was heavy in the back straight on Thursday evening, but by the time we raced on the Saturday it had improved to good to soft."
He adds: "Nottingham has a good deal of potential, but my first priority must be to improve the track, which took quite a hammering early on in the season when the ground was heavy."
Apart from jacket-off, sleeves-up experience alongside his head groundsman, Robert's career change required a period of intense learning and spent a week he at his desk in his Stow-on-the-Wold home preparing for the mandatory 90-minute written examination and formal interview by the training board at Portman Square. He had already sailed through his head groundsman course at York with a 70 percent-plus pass.
Robert is adamant that getting smashed up was not the worst part of the job. "Although those injuries were very painful, they didn't hurt as much as being jocked off by more fashionable riders - and I suffered plenty of that in my time.
"I didn't mind it so much when I was replaced by a top jockey, but when it's a peer with the same ability, well that really wounds."
Losing the ride on the John Tuck-trained Rio's King, on whom he had won four races, following defeat in Newbury's Challow Hurdle hurt him the most.
"The owners decided I should have won and replaced me," Robert explained. "He wasn't an easy horse to train or ride, and we'd worked our socks off to get him on the racecourse.
"Then, against the trainer's wishes, I lost the ride. That put a strain on the relationship between the owners and John, and the following season the horse was moved to Paul Nicholls."
The story had a sad ending for all concerned. Rio's King won a novice chase at Chepstow on his debut for Nicholls but was killed on his next start when odds-on for the 2000 Dipper Novices' Chase at Newcastle.
While in pursuit of a second career, Robert made full use of the services of the Jockeys' Employment and Training Scheme (Jets), and cannot praise Dana Mellor and her team enough for their support in shaping up his CV and furnishing him with computer and media skills.
"Jets was invaluable and I'm very grateful for what they've done for me," he said. "I was very fortunate that I didn't have to give up riding and then start to look for a job."
Robert's eldest son Tom, aged six, kept the secret of his father's farewell party, even though he had known about it for weeks, and he has also kept something for the future in a corner of his wardrobe.
Father explains: "On the day I gave up riding, Tom grabbed hold of my goggles and my biggest saddle, and informed us they'd come in handy when he starts point-to-pointing."
Aged 16, Tommy Bellamy made his riding debut at the end of November 2010 riding Ponchatrain at Ffos Las.
