Bill was one of the most respected and loved horsemen in Australian history.

He was injured on the cross country at the 1960 Rome Olympics, and taken to hospital, but when one of the team horses went lame, he ignored the doctors and checked himself out of hospital, and with a busted shoulder, rode the showjumping one handed on his great little horse, Our Solo, to secure team gold for Australia.

Bill went on to compete in four more Games: 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1976. He won team bronzes in Mexico City in 1968 and Montreal in 1976. His sons, Barry, Wayne and Clarke, also rode in Olympics, as did Wayne’s wife, Vicki.

James William George Roycroft was born in Melbourne and grew up in Flowerdale, north-east of the city, with his five brothers and two sisters on his parents dairy farm.

Bill rode to school and around the farm but he didn’t get a saddle until he was 14, about the time he left school. Bill’s first job away from the farm was as a messenger boy in the Water Commission in Leeton.

Bill had a number of jobs, share cropping, rabbit trapping and fox shooting and occasional farm work. He was starting to compete and win in equestrian competitions, and it was on the horse scene that he met his future wife, Mavis.

Bill joined the army at the beginning of World War II and on his first big leave, he and Mavis were married. Bill didn’t get to see his son, Barry, until the younger was two, and then he went back to fight for another two years.

At the end of the war, Bill and Mavis took up a 200 hectare soldier settlers block near Boorcan in western Victoria. Two more sons were born – Wayne and Clarke, and the couple gradually turned the property into a successful dairy farm. Eventing has been introduced to the Western District of Victoria in the mid fifties, and Bill was keen to try for the 1960 Olympics. In 1959 he was selected for the team and the horses and riders set sail for five months of intensive training in the UK.

In the lead up to the Games the Australians entered the Badminton Horse Trials and Bill became the first Australian to win the prestige event. The Australians also took the team event.

In 1965, Bill based himself in England for six months and became the first person to ride three horses round Badminton.

Bill and Mavis were certainly a team, and it was her keen eye for a horse that kept Bill and the boys well horses – and these weren’t high priced ‘made’ horses, but diamonds Mavis found, sometimes very rough.

Bill Roycroft is survived by his sons Barry, Wayne and Clarke and their families. Mavis died in 2007.