Freedman, is best known as the trainer of Melbourne Cup winner Makybe Diva
Early life
Freedman was born 12 August 1956, in Sydney to Anthony William and Estelle Dawn Freedman.[1] His great-grandfather, David Freedman, was a Russian Jew who fled from Elizavetgrad (now Kirovohrad in Ukraine) to America, via Germany and London. His son Allan, Lee Freedman's grandfather, was an electrical engineer who came to Australia in 1927, meeting his future wife Maudie McLachlan on board the ship. Maudie's father was William H. McLachlan, a jockey who rode Melbourne Cup winners in 1909, 1910 and 1917.[2]
Lee Freedman gained an interest in racing at a young age when his father Tony took up horse breeding and training after retiring as a property developer.
Educated at The Scots College in Sydney,[1] Freedman studied at Australian National University for a year, but was quickly bored and dropped out to become involved in the breeding industry himself, running the stud farm owned by the family, near Yass in Southern New South Wales.
Freedman quickly tired of this, and decided to branch out on his own as a horse trainer, initially setting up stables at Warwick Farm in Sydney. Training only a small team of horses, Freedman and stable foreman and brother Anthony found it difficult to train winners at Warwick Farm, where facilities were inferior to those at Sydney's premier track, Randwick.
Freedman purchased the stable and home vacated by outstanding trainer Bart Cummings who had moved to Sydney. Freedman soon found success with classy filly Sauna, who was Group One placed and smart gelding Affected. His first Group One winner was another filly, Miss Clipper, who won the SAJCAustralasian Oaks.
Freedman's step towards training stardom came in the 1989 Melbourne Cup, when he trained the first two runners home, winning the race with stayer Tawrrific, ridden by Shane Dye, who was followed home by Super Impose. 'Super', as he was affectionately known, won eight Group One races, including the Epsom Handicap and Doncaster Handicap twice. His most famous victory was in the 1992 Cox Plate as an eight-year-old. Super Impose's form had been disappointing that spring, and was in the twilight of his career. The hot favourite for the race was another Freedman horse, the classy Naturalism. At around the 600m mark, Naturalism was involved in a fall. Super Impose charged home from last to win by a head, defeating 1991 Melbourne Cup heroine Let's Elope.
The early to mid 90s marked Freedman's most successful era as a trainer. In this time, he trained a number of outstanding gallopers, including outstanding sprinter Schillaci, quality mare Mannerism, Mahogany, who won Group One races from 1000m to 2500m, as well as Melbourne Cup winners Subzero (1992) and Doriemus, who won the Caulfield Cup – Melbourne Cup double in 1995. Freedman also won an unprecedented four consecutive Golden Slippers, Australia's premier Two Year Old race between 1993 and 1996, with Bint Marscay, Danzero, Flying Spur, and Merlene. During this time, the combination between Freedman and stable jockey, Damien Oliver was the best known and most successful in the country.
In this time Freedman was not immune from controversy. In March 1995 he was found guilty of substituting a horse in a barrier trial. To gain permission to run a horse, Central Express, in blinkers, it was necessary for it to run in a barrier trial, to demonstrate that the horse could properly run in them. Forced to run the trial the day before a race, Freedman substituted in another runner, Spanish Reign, for the trial. As such, Central Express ran in blinkers in the race, and duly won. Although Freedman said the substitution was for a good reason, not wanting to 'flatten' his horse before the race, he was suspended for four months. In this period, his brother Richard took over as trainer.
Another scandal to hit Freedman involved his outstanding three-year-old, Encosta De Lago, before the Bill Stutt Stakes at Moonee Valley in September 1996. The colt returned a test over the legal limit to the performance-enhancing substance TC02, or bicarbonate. A second test confirmed the result, however a third was ordered, which was also over the legal limit, but within the accepted margin of error. Encosta De Lago was allowed to run, and won the race easily. Although no action was taken against Freedman, it would be a significant distraction to the stable.
Setbacks and resurgence
The Encosta De Lago affair happened to coincide with a decline in the stable's fortunes, although the main reason is more likely the unsuccessful move to Caulfield Racecourse, from Flemington. Between the 1997–98 and 2002–2003 seasons, Freedman trained only fifteen Group One winners. Although by many measures this would be regarded as successful, it was an extremely poor run compared with mid-1990s, where in 1995–96 alone Freedman trained 13 Group One winners.
After the 2000 Melbourne Cup Carnival, during which the stable won only one listed race, Freedman decided to radically change his training set-up. Lee's brother Richard purchased a large piece of land, near Rye, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. This was named Markdel, after Freedman's intellectually disabled older brother Mark, and mother Del. It is a state of the art private training facility, which is believed to be largely responsible for his recent resurgence.
This resurgence has been best symbolised by outstanding fillies Alinghi and Special Harmony, classy stayer Mummify, and champion mare Makybe Diva. In 2003 Lee Freedman joined the ranks of Australia's all-time greats when he was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.[3]
Mummify was one Freedman's favourite horses. Unfashionably bred, he managed to win a South Australian Derby as a three-year-old, but his effort to win the Caulfield Cup in 2003, leading all the way, was by far his greatest. Mummify's other significant wins were in the 2004 Yalumba Stakes, and 2005 Singapore Airlines International Cup. Mummify was killed in the 2005 Caulfield Cup, when he broke a bone in his leg, and was euthanised.
Freedman took over the training of Makybe Diva in 2004, after David Hall left to take up a position in Hong Kong. Freedman took an already Melbourne Cup winner and emerging superstar, winning a BMW, an Australian Cup and a Cox Plate with her. Freedman's greatest training achievement is winning the 2004[4] and 2005[5] Melbourne Cup's with 'The Diva', taking her to a total of three wins in the Cup, which has never been done in more than 150 years of the race. Makybe Diva was retired after winning her third Melbourne Cup in November 2005.
As of 2006 Freedman is regarded as Victoria's premier horse trainer, and along with Bart Cummings, Gai Waterhouse, David Hayes and John Hawkes, among Australia's best.
Following a decline in success for Freedman Brothers, Lee Freedman retired from training in August, 2011.[6] He later admitted the strain of failure had impacted heavily on his personal life.[7] Lee's brothers Anthony and Michael took over training duties at Markdel. Over the ensuing three years, Freedman held various positions in the racing industry including director of racing for Lloyd Williams's Macedon Lodge, a training partnership with Sydney-based Graeme Rogerson and an advisor to Sir Peter Vela's Pencarrow Stud in New Zealand. During this period, Michael Freedman moved to Singapore and Anthony departed Markdel, transferring his training operation to Flemington.
In November 2014 Freedman announced he was returning to training, in partnership with Anthony,[8] with stables at Flemington and Pinecliff, on the Mornington Peninsula. The pair's most successful horses in this period were sprinters Shoals and Santa Ana Lane. In 2017/8 Shoals won three Group 1 races including the Myer Classic in Victoria and the Surround Stakes in Sydney. Santa Ana Lane won five Group 1 races, including South Australia's premier race The Goodwood and Brisbane's premier sprint The Stradbroke Hcp within 3 weeks of each other in 2018.
In mid-2017 Freedman moved to Singapore to train horses there, taking over the stables of New Zealand-born Laurie Laxon.[9] Lee trained the winner of the 2018 Group 1 Singapore Guineas, Mr. Clint.
Partly due to COVID-19 and its effects on Singapore racing, Freedman announced his plan to return to Australia in late 2020. He will be based at the Gold Coast.[10]
Freedman has two daughters, Emma and Georgia, with his ex-wife Janelle. Emma, is a radio and television presenter, best known as host of Wide World of Sports, and a former weather presenter for the Nine Network in Australia. Currently, she is a presenter on Foxtel's Fox League channel.
Related Research Articles
The Melbourne Cup is an annual Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race held in Melbourne, Australia, at the Flemington Racecourse. It is a 3200-metre race for three-year-olds and older, conducted by the Victoria Racing Club that forms part of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival. It is the richest two-mile handicap in the world and one of the richest turf races. The event starts at 3:00 pm on the first Tuesday of November and is known locally as "the race that stops the nation".
Thoroughbred horse racing is a spectator sport in Australia, and gambling on horse races is a very popular pastime with A$14.3 billion wagered in 2009/10 with bookmakers and the Totalisator Agency Board (TAB). The two forms of Thoroughbred horseracing in Australia are flat racing, and races over fences or hurdles in Victoria and South Australia. Thoroughbred racing is the third most attended spectator sport in Australia, behind Australian rules football and rugby league, with almost two million admissions to 360 registered racecourses throughout Australia in 2009/10. Horseracing commenced soon after European settlement, and is now well-appointed with automatic totalizators, starting gates and photo finish cameras on nearly all Australian racecourses.
The W. S. Cox Plate is a Group 1 Thoroughbred horse race for horses aged three years old and over under Weight for age conditions, over a distance of 2040 metres, that is held by the Moonee Valley Racing Club at Moonee Valley Racecourse, Melbourne, Australia in late October. The race has a purse of A$5,000,000.
Makybe Diva is a champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse who is the only horse to win three Melbourne Cups and the only mare to win it more than once. She achieved the feat in 2003, 2004, and 2005. She also won the 2005 Cox Plate. She was the highest stakes-earner in Australian history, winning more than A$14 million.
Northerly was an Australian racehorse who is considered arguably Australia's best middle distance Thoroughbred horse of the early 2000s. Northerly, trained by Western Australian harness racing legend Fred Kersley, won nine Group One (G1) races, including the Australian Cup twice, and the Cox Plate, regarded as the Weight for Age championship of Australasia, also on two occasions.
Lonhro is a champion Australian racehorse Nicknamed "The Black Flash", he was from the first crop of the champion Octagonal out of the Group One-placed Shadea, who also produced the Group One winner Niello. Lonhro raced from two to five years of age and won 26 races, including 25 stakes races, ranging in distance from 1,100 to 2,000 metres. These included 11 Group One wins and 18 wins at weight-for-age. He was bred and owned by Woodlands Stud and trained by John Hawkes. Lonhro's name is based on the stock exchange code of the London Rhodesian Mining and Land Company, LONRHO. This arose from his foaling description as "tiny but perfect", a label ascribed to Roland "Tiny" Rowland, CEO of the company. The horse's name is deliberately misspelt.
Damien Oliver is an Australian thoroughbred racing jockey. Oliver comes from a racing family; his father Ray Oliver had a successful career until his death in a race fall during the 1975 Kalgoorlie Cup in Western Australia. In 2008, Oliver was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. In August 2023 he announced that he would retire at the end of that year's spring carnival.
Kingston Town was a champion Australian Thoroughbred racehorse who won three Cox Plates and 11 other Group One races and was the 1980 Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year.
Carbine (1885–1914) was a champion New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who won 30 principal races in New Zealand and Australia. He was very popular with racing fans, and sporting commentators of the day praised him for his gameness, versatility, stamina and weight-carrying ability, as well as for his speed. He was one of five inaugural inductees into both the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame and the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.
Rising Fast was a champion New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who is the only horse to complete the Spring Grand Slam, winning the Melbourne Cup, Caulfield Cup, and Cox Plate in 1954. He also won the 1955 Caulfield Cup and came second in the 1955 Melbourne Cup.
Thomas John Smith was a leading trainer of thoroughbred racehorses based in Sydney, New South Wales.
Elvstroem was a bay Thoroughbred racehorse, by world champion sire Danehill from the former champion three-year-old filly, Circles of Gold.
Super Impose was a New Zealand-bred Thoroughbred racehorse who was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. In a career spanning 74 starts, he won eight Group One races and a then Australasian record $5.6 million in prize money. Trained throughout his career by Lee Freedman and ridden in his Group One wins by Bruce Compton (once), Darren Gauci (once), Darren Beadman, and Greg Hall (once), Super Impose won the AJC Epsom and Doncaster Handicaps two years in a row, in 1990 and 1991, and won the Cox Plate at his penultimate start as an eight-year-old in 1992.
Mummify was a popular Australian Thoroughbred racehorse that amassed A$5,134,320 in prize money and won five Group One races, including the 2003 Caulfield Cup and the Singapore Airlines International Cup.
Fields of Omagh, also known as FOO, was an Australian champion middle distance Thoroughbred racehorse of the early-mid-2000s. He was a half-brother to the stakeswinners, King Brian, Malcolm and Timeless Grace.
Encosta De Lago was an Australian bred Thoroughbred racehorse that won three group races from eight starts including the Group One (G1), Vic Health Cup against older horses. He was the Leading sire in Australia during 2008 and 2009.
Craig Williams is a jockey based in Victoria, Australia. He has won multiple group one races in Australia and worldwide, including the 2019 Melbourne Cup.
Chris Waller, is a Hall of Fame trainer in Australian Thoroughbred racing best known for training the racemare Winx, a four-time winner of Australian Horse of the Year honours.
Michael Moroney is a New Zealand Thoroughbred racehorse trainer. He is notable for having trained Brew to win the 2000 Melbourne Cup and many other Group One races in New Zealand and Australia.
The 1989 Melbourne Cup was a handicap horse race which took place on Tuesday, 7 November 1989 over 3200m, at Flemington Racecourse.
References
1 2 Suzannah Pearce, ed. (17 November 2006). "FREEDMAN (Lee) David Lee". Who's Who in Australia Live!. North Melbourne, Vic: Crown Content Pty Ltd.
↑ Andrew Rule, "The stayer", The Age, 4 November 2006, "Good Weekend", p. 33
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
