Beginning in the mid-1980s, John has built an international reputation as a trainer who gets results with horses he has either selected from the auction ring or sourced through stable clients.
Starting out from his original lower North Island base, John took out the ‘Newcomer to Training’ award in the 1992-93 season and finished second on the New Zealand Strike-Rate table in 1994-95. Notable successes through that period included the country’s richest two-year-old race, the Magic Millions Classic, with Vedodara, the Gr. 1 Captain Cook Stakes and the Gr. 2 Wanganui Stakes and Taranaki Stakes with Super Crest, the Gr. 2 Queensland St Leger (Filament), the Gr. 3 Canterbury Gold Cup (Whey To Go) and the Gr. 3 White Robe Lodge Stakes (The Big Bopper).
Having trained more than 200 winners and finishing in the top 10 of the Trainers’ Premiership in his final two New Zealand seasons, in 1998 John took up the challenge to relocate to Malaysia, where he quickly adapted to the new environment and recorded a number of major wins to establish himself in the trainers’ ranks.
Major wins included Malaysia’s richest race, the Penang Gold Cup, as well as the Perak Cup and the Selangor Gold Cup. In the year 2000, his third season there, John topped the trainers’ premiership.
Returning to New Zealand with his young family in 2002, John’s Ladbrook Park Stables made an even greater impact, initially with victory in the $500,000 Mercedes Super Bonus Classique with Successor, a horse John had purchased a year earlier from the National Yearling Sales for just $21,000.
Other horses that highlighted his training skills, were the stakes-winning pair Shastri and Bhandara – both of them produced from his earlier big winner Vedodara – and major New Zealand and Brisbane winner Tickle.
John broke new ground in mid-2012 when he claimed his first Group One success in Australia with Quintessential in the Queensland Oaks. Then to cap off a memorable season, he became the first New Zealander to win premierships in two jurisdictions when he added the New Zealand trainers’ premiership to his Malaysian title. 
Now focusing his operations on Sydney’s premier horse training centre, Randwick, joining the ranks of Sydney’s top horse trainers, John Sargent is having success Australia wide. From winning the Group One Australian Oaks with Gust of Wind to conquering his third Wakeful Stakes with promising filly Luvaluva.
John Sargent invites you to join him on the road to success and is happy to have you contact John Sargent Racing by phone, email or in person.
