The dark art that has the Freedman brothers firing for Golden Slipper

Should you brave the elements and venture to Rosehill Gardens on Saturday, elbowing your way to the fence of the mounting yard before the Golden Slipper, what are you looking for from the millions of dollars of horseflesh as you thumb the racebook like a pro?

I’ll be the first to admit it: I have absolutely no idea. Shiny coat. Big muscles. Looks relaxed. Not sweating up. That will do. Proceed to betting ring.

Richard and Michael Freedman at their stables in Randwick. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Horse people see something entirely different. They will see it at Rosehill. They will see it every race. The really good ones see it when the horses are parading as yearlings at the sales.

When you have been doing this malarkey as long as Michael and Richard Freedman, it allows you to have two runners in the Slipper: second favourite Stay Inside ($4.80) and outsider Glistening ($71). The same discerning eye allows their brother, Anthony, and his son Sam, to have $11 hope and Blue Diamond winner Artorius in the race.

It’s allowed the Freedman family to rebuild and reinvent over 40 years of racing, forever living up to the reputation they formed with older brother Lee in the heady days of FBI — Freedman Brothers Inc — when they wore three-piece suits and designer sunglasses and were winning almost every race in the land through the 1980s and ’90s.

“There are a lot of good trainers but the key to being a successful one is getting the right stock through the front gate of the stable,” Richard says. “The key to that is the dark art of yearling selection. And it is a dark art. There’s no science to it. I can’t stress how central that has been to us surviving. We’ve had to rebuild our stable over the years four or five times, from nothing. But we’ve always been able to pick out stars.”

Golden Slipper runner Glistening in the stables of Michael and Richard Freedman in Randwick.Credit:Wolter Peeters

As Michael explains: “It’s like building a football side. The yearling sales is our draft. When you’re starting from scratch, you have to pick the ones from the sales, with a limited budget, and that’s the only way you can get yourself going again.”

More than two decades ago, in the last remaining years of FBI, Anthony was dispatched to the Adelaide sales. They gave him $200,000 to spend.

“What am I going to buy with that?” he grumbled.

“Do your best,” his brothers replied.

FBI in its heyday: Lee Freedman, Michael Freedman, Richard Freedman and Anthony Freedman.Credit:Fairfax

He returned with five horses: three were group winners and the other two metro winners. One was Mummify, who won the 2003 Caulfield Cup and finished his career with more than $5 million in prizemoney. The dark art.

When Michael and Richard were at the Magic Millions two years ago, with their racing partnership still in its infancy, it took all of about 30 seconds for them to realise they wanted the Extreme Choice yearling parading in front of them.

It was Stay Inside, the impressive colt who won his first two races and probably would have claimed the Todman last start if he found some clear air.

He cost $200,000, which is a little less than the average price at the Gold Coast sales. They bought him on spec, with no owners. Now he’s on the second line of betting in the world’s richest race for two-year-olds.

“We liked the way he’s conformed in his front legs,” Richard explains. “The way he’s conformed in his hind legs. The angle of his shoulder. The angle that his neck is set onto his shoulder. The proportion of his shoulder to his neck to his body. The length of his hindquarter. The angle of his hind leg onto his hindquarter …”

I met the pair at their Randwick stables earlier this week beneath clear Sydney skies — before the heavy rain set in and turned this year’s Slipper into a $3.5 million lottery.

Richard returned to racing four years ago after 13 years or so in the media, and one controversial stint at the former AJC as executive director of racing operations. He returned to racing in 2017.

After eight years in Singapore, then two in Hong Kong, Michael returned to Sydney in 2019 and joined up with his brother.

Michael trains the young horses at Randwick, while Richard prepares the older ones at Rosehill. They would train more but there’s not enough boxes with the mega stables of Waller, Waterhouse, Godolphin and Snowden sucking up most of them across Sydney tracks.

The winning Freedman brothers – trainer Lee, Anthony, Michael and Richard – after Subzero won the Melbourne Cup in 1992. Credit:Fairfax

“Because he’s at Rosehill, and I’m at Randwick, that poses some difficulties,” Michael says. “But it works quite well.”

Reminders of past glory are everywhere you look. Here, in Michael’s office, the walls are adorned with pictures of the fresh-faced Freedmans, in designer suits and Wayfarer sunglasses, with big teethy smiles as they celebrate even bigger wins.

There’s Subzero, winner of the 1992 Melbourne Cup. There’s Mahogany, winner of the 1993 Victoria Derby who was owned by Kerry Packer and Lloyd Williams. There’s Schillaci, the iconic grey sprinter who claimed eight group 1s.

Then there’s the Slipper winners. In the early 1990s, when the Freedmans were getting up the nose of established trainers and stables. They were knocked because they were only winning with older horses.

Older and wiser: The Freedman brothers train at Rosehill and Randwick.Credit:Wolter Peeters

So they went out, applied their dark arts at the yearling sales, and from 1993 onwards won four consecutive Golden Slippers with Bint Marscay, Danzero, Flying Spur and Merlene.

The last one stands out for Michael.

“Ros Packer was the only one there to collect the trophy,” he recalls. “Kerry was up at Ellerston. Lloyd was in Melbourne. Only Ros and James were there. She flew down in the chopper from the Hunter Valley, picked up the trophy, flew back.”

There was something undeniably cool about the Freedman roadshow back then. They were twenty-something blokes riding the crest of a wave, surfing their way to success in a sport that was dominated by the likes of Cummings, Hayes and Smith.

‘Everyone thinks the carousel will never stop, but then it starts to slow down and other people get on.’

Just by being themselves, their success dragged in a whole new generation of fans to racing.

“It was never a conscious effort to be like that,” Michael says. “We were just being who we were.”

The apparent ease with which it happened belied just how hard they had all worked.

Racing is in their bloodlines, stretching back to great grandfather Bill “Midge” McLachlan, who won the 1909 Melbourne Cup on Prince Foote then on Comedy King the following year.

One of the best: Lee and Anthony Freedman with Naturalism and Schillaci in 1992.Credit:Craig Golding

Their father, Tony, is described as a larger-than-life character who was a builder by trade before setting up a farm at Yass. When he died at the age of 55 from a heart attack, the four boys were left to care for their mother Del and their eldest brother, Mark, who is disabled.

Richard was 21. Michael was just 16.

“When Dad died, we had nothing,” Richard says. “People think we come from landed gentry … The farm went, we owed money. We just had to grow up very quickly. By the time we were mid-20s, we were one of the five biggest stables in Melbourne. By the time we were in our late 20s and early 30s, we were the biggest trainers in Australia. It makes you very hard, but I think we did all right. What it does is take away your fear of things. And we fear nothing, which can be good and bad.”

The Freedmans were shoved into the national spotlight in 1989 when Tawriffic stormed down the middle of the Flemington straight to win the Melbourne Cup, two lengths ahead of stablemate Super Impose.

They were on their way.

“We didn’t realise how much fun it was until it was all serious business,” Richard says.

“It rapidly became that in the mid-1990s. Instead of getting drunk, we were having board meetings.”

Did they think it would last forever?

“Everyone does,” he laughs. “Everyone thinks the carousel will never stop, but then it starts to slow down and other people get on.”

Richard was the first to jump off, taking up a hosting gig on Sky Radio’s Big Sports Breakfast before branching off into TV. His ill-fated year at the AJC ended when he fell out with trainers, especially Gai Waterhouse, who he threatened to sue over her constant criticism.

“The worst 12 months of my life,” Richard says of the experience. “I learned a lot about large organisations.”

Michael went overseas soon after, leaving Anthony and Lee in partnership.

There have been various permutations of FBI since then, some leaving and some coming back. In an interview with the Herald five years ago, Lee spoke about the toll the sport took on his health and marriage. He’s currently setting up a stable on the Gold Coast.

What keeps the Freedmans coming back is the horse, and their love of it, something that has never waned.

I ask them if they’re as passionate about it now as they were all those years ago, when FBI was in its pomp?

“As competitive,” says Richard.

“If you’re going to work these stupid f..king hours,” Michael laughs, “you have to.”

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