Born in Norland, near Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire in 1958, Holden emigrated from England to New Zealand with his family in 1973.

[4] Holden would ride up to four different machines stepping off his Superbike onto a 250 Production machine then straight onto a 600 sports production bike followed by 15 laps and his Rotax 250 GP bike, it seemed at the time that Holden's only rest was during the sidecar race although he did passenger for Kevin Maxwell for a season of road racing on one.

While leading the Open Production Race on his 1135 GSX Suzuki, he crashed at 200 km/h, the bike slid and cartwheeled through a large sign advertising "Holden" cars.

Some of New Zealand's best racing was seen during the early nineties between Holden on the Ducati and Andrew Stroud on the famous Britten V1000.

[6] The Robert Holden Memorial feature race at the famous Cemetery Circuit meeting in Wanganui, New Zealand is named in his honour.