Jess de Lautour, LOVERACING.NZ News Desk
19 May 2025
Syd Brown, a legendary trainer and member of the New Zealand Racing Hall Of Fame, passed away on Sunday, aged 99.
Brown initially dreamed of becoming a jockey, but weight issues prevented this from becoming a reality, prompting him to commence his training career at Te Rapa as a 19-year-old.
After marrying his wife Sybil, Brown settled in Woodville, where he would rise to prominence as New Zealand’s leading trainer from 1967 to 1969, setting a new record for stakes earned in a racing season.
Brown never shied away from an Australian raid, campaigning star galloper Redcraze to win the Gr.1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m) before his first Gr.1 Melbourne Cup (3200m) start in 1955. Redcraze was luckless in the Cup and was subsequently transferred to the care of Sydney trainer Tommy Smith, but Brown was only just getting started, returning to Australia over the next decade and a half with an abundance of success.
In 1969, Brown would assert himself among the best across the Tasman during the spring carnival, winning a Gr.1 Cox Plate (2040m) and Gr.1 VRC Derby (2400m) with the phenomenal Daryl’s Joy, alongside other major victories with Hamua (Caulfield Stakes) and Wood Court Inn (Thousand Guineas).
Two years later, Brown claimed a Gr.1 AJC Derby (2400m) and his second VRC Derby with Classic Mission, a treasured moment in his career, with the latter victory coinciding with the retirement of George Moore. The champion jockey gifted his saddle to Brown after the race, and during Brown’s acceptance speech at the 2014 New Zealand Racing’s Hall Of Fame Awards, he revealed the saddle still held pride of place in his home in Sydney.
“It’ll stay with me - I think I’m on my last twelve months on this earth and then it’ll be given to the Hall Of Fame in Sydney,” Brown said at the time.
Though he believed his time might be nearing an end, Brown would live for over a decade longer at Warwick Farm, where he relocated permanently in 1972 after the success of Classic Mission and Crown Law.
“I raced horses in Victoria quite a lot, but in my first trip to Sydney, I brought three horses over and had such a wonderful run,” Brown told New Zealand Racing’s Hall Of Fame. “In my first five runners, I had four winners and a second in the city, in big races.
“I decided to pull up stumps in New Zealand and give it a try at Warwick Farm for 12 months and see how it went. Luckily in my first year there, I finished third in the premiership to Tommy Smith and Jack Denham, so I decided to move over permanently.”
A number of elite gallopers, including Triton, Kista and Stormy Seas, would come out of Brown’s Sydney base over the next four decades, and when he retired from training at 82, his legacy and impact would never be forgotten in Australasian racing.
“The racing clubs not only in Sydney, but also Victoria, have been very good to me,” Brown told New Zealand Racing’s Hall Of Fame.
“I was made a life member of the Moonee Valley Racing Club and in Sydney, they look after me very well every time I go.”
Brown passed on his love for thoroughbred racing to his two sons, Errol and Bruce Brown, who have both enjoyed successful training careers in Australia.
