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The crusty Randwick trackman, with a voice like rasping sandpaper, and the portly old dude who held court outside the press room at headquarters had once pulled off an amputation - considerably more than a sting - on bookmakers.
In the 1950s they came on to my radar. Me being freshly out of the cradle, they seemed ancient, although on reflection they were possibly younger than I am now.
Unfortunately I didn't realise they had a story to tell.
Wizened Mick Hayes, with a reputation for identifying 100 horses with a mere glance, clocked gallops during the early hours, while the rotund "Baron" Bob Skelton had been regarded as the "biggest and gamest punter in the world" in 1923.
Certainly Skelton rates with Australia's most colourful and successful, no mean feat.
During his prime, Skelton as a trainer compared with Chris Waller when it came to monopolising Sydney racing, albeit in the Little League: pony racing.
However, the money was the same and Skelton owned and trained 60 horses, balancing the rules precariously to the degree he built a reputation for skulduggery to rival that of "Grafter" Kingsley, who manipulated the scales around Newcastle so jockeys could successfully carry much less than the required weight.
Skelton was nicknamed "Baron Bob" because he had a mansion in Barker Street, Randwick, overlooking Kensington racecourse, now the University of NSW. The area was like his own fiefdom.
Races for ponies, with size limits of under 14.2 hands, were introduced with great success. Four companies established the Associated Racing Clubs, and held meetings from 1907 at Ascot (near Mascot airport) Kensington, Rosebery and Victoria Park.
Skelton, born in Victoria, was a qualified plumber and gas fitter but a gambler by inclination, starting a winning streak when he sold a block of ice for threepence and turned it into 10 pounds at two-up.
After venturing to India, Skelton was lured home due to the insider trading advantages of racehorse training. By 1920 he had one of the largest teams in Australia.
Winning races wasn't worth a crumpet unless the money was on with bookmakers and he was constantly seeking an edge.
Such as the time he staged a last-to-first reversal pulling off a huge coup, but he was immediately called to front ARC stewards, then captained by Bert Collins, a former Test opening batsman.
Skelton's plea centred on Collins once scoring a century.
"But in the second innings you had a duck," he argued. "That's like my horse. You can't be consistent all the time."
No action was taken but he was caught later, being disqualified for life. He served only three years during which he would watch races from vantage points outside the course, with agents taking his bets on course.
Still, his ploy with jockey "J. Nugent" at Kensington even later made "Melbourne" Mick Bartley, a dab hand at odds manipulation, envious.
Hoops had to be declared a half-hour before every race and their engagements had a significant impact on the betting.
Bookmakers took risks with the newcomer Nugent until he arrived in the enclosure to mount the sensationally backed Skelton horse. He was Mick Hayes, a gun money rider, and had no trouble winning, producing pain more intense for bookmakers than just a sting.
Hayes had changed his name by deed poll and produced the papers for stewards to prove it.
Despite Waller's current mass representation in Sydney fields, he won't do a Skelton – essentially put on his own race meeting with only the odd starter from another stable.
Skelton had been chairman of the Pony Owners and Trainers Association but allegations arose he had dabbled in association funds.
Incensed, he left the association, which declared him persona non grata. Trainers would not start any horses in races for which his team accepted, going on strike at a rich Rosebery meeting.
So Skelton supplied the 38 runners from his 60. (Waller has no fewer than 140 in training.)
Only eight jockeys rode at the meeting and Skelton called them into the enclosure before the first race and boomed: "Now you get out there and try for your life. I'm not going to have a bet."
Skelton won five races but the feature, the Rosebery Cup, went to a strike breaker. Other trainers quickly relented and the ponies returned to normal.
Pony racing died in 1942 but Skelton maintained his plunging, collecting £35,000, a small fortune, on Wellington, trained by Maurice McCarten, and proved all horse players don't die broke.
When Skelton was pointed out to me at Randwick a young Barry Parkes, from The Sportsman, would run bets for him but Hayes was more low-key and during the early morning gallops his sparring partner was Cliff "Daddy" Graves, a great racing writer.
Graves was doing his time on the dawn shift for Frank Packer, who promised him a job for as long as he wanted to work, and they would loosen up as the sun rose with a couple of rum and milks when I should have got the inside story on Baron Bob.
"Only death will stop me punting," Skelton pontificated, and it did in February 1959, aged 77.
