Freedman Formula in play for success and to make stallions

Cover image courtesy of Magic Millions

To do it, they’ve teamed up with long-time friend and trusted bloodstock agent Michael Wallace following his fresh departure from China Horse Club and ventured back as an independent agent. Richard and Michael Freedman, along with Wallace, have been drill-like in their approach to this year’s Sale, looking at every horse on the complex.

“There’s a pretty strict strategy involved here,’’ Richard said. “We have, I think, a very good reputation in training 2-year-olds. Across the board, all the Freedmans have produced a lot of Group 1 2-year-old winners and certainly that’s where the breeding industry places a huge amount of value.

“A lot of people realise that and want to play in that space. The idea is that we come here and between us, and with Michael Wallace, we set up a partnership to target the sort of horses we think can do the job as a 2-year-old, and at the very latest as a 3-year-old.

“We’re looking to make stallions. That’s what these horses are aiming at being. That’s the lucrative end of the market that a lot of our investors want to play in,’’ Richard said.

Putting the process to work

From the 1235 horses that had the eyes of the Freedman brothers and Wallace on them leading to the Sale, most of them twice, stressed Richard, they have collated a list of about 80 with an aim to take home eight to 10. By the end of Day 3, they had put together 10.

“We’ve sorted them down to the sort of horses that we like to train and we think are likely to run as 2-year-olds,’’ Richard said. “You have to have a long list and you have to be happy with everyone on that list, because you just have to work down and buy the ones you think are value.’’

The Freedman Brothers and Wallace combination were not likely to take a $1 million horse home from the Gold Coast, Richard saying buying yearlings at that type of price was a “fairly risky proposition’’.

“We like to play in a slightly lower space, although that number keeps climbing every year as the market climbs and it’s definitely more this year than we’ve paid in other years. But I still think we’re at the better end of the value,’’ he said.

“The skill of this is getting the right horses at the right price. You always do (miss out) but it's not a perfect science. Luck does play its role. You could miss one that you were hugely keen on and buy one that you were not quite as keen on and it turns out to be the better horse.’’

Michael Freedman may have five fewer years of exposure to the Freedman Formula than Richard but, given his knowledge of it spans 45 years, he is just as familiar with it and, more importantly, sticks to it.

“We’ve done quite a bit of homework leading up to it and think we’ve put together quite a good list of horses,’’ he said. “As is the case for everyone, it is whether we can buy them or not.

“We’ve been underbidder on two or three colts that we liked but you’ve got to be disciplined about where you think your limit is at in terms of price. Sure, there was a few here that we would have liked to take home but we just ran out of juice.’’

The lion’s share of the yearlings the Freedman and Wallace partnership buy will go to Michael’s Randwick stables, while Richard says he does like to have some 2-year-olds in his Rosehill stable along with the 3, 4 and 5-year-olds.

“That’s the way it’s worked in the past. The stable is progressively getting younger and younger and I think that suits where we sit in the market,’’ Richard added.

And while it had been just colts they’d purchased by Thursday in the Sale, Michael said he was hopeful of taking home a filly or two also.

“We’re certainly not exclusive to buying colts,’’ Michael said. “Given the group we’ve put together this year there is probably more an emphasis on colts than fillies but that’s not to say we wouldn’t consider a nice filly.’’

The Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale had been a happy hunting ground for a lot of people, Michael added, while Richard was of the strong belief that not everybody can play in this market place and there are some very good trainers who are struggling to play in this space financially.

“It depends a little bit on the clients that you’ve bought a racehorse for,’’ Michael said. “Some people are happy to just come in and buy a horse just as a racehorse without that (Magic Millions) series in mind. Others come here with the mindset that they’d like to buy something for the 2-year-old race next year, it does vary from client-to-client.’’

Richard says the very specialised business that comes in-hand with Magic Millions also meant more of a certain type of horse was definitely on offer.

“It’s a very specialised business,’’ he said. “As far as the sorts of horses that are here… there are staying horses here, there’s not as many here as there are at other sales. People tend to send their earlier maturing type of horse to this Sale.

“That is why we’ve taken a heavy leaning to the Sale. The sort of horses we’re looking for specifically, more of them are here.’’

A Golden endorsement

The Freedmans said winning the Golden Slipper with Stay Inside (Extreme Choice) had given clients confidence in their ability as trainers but also was a glowing endorsement at picking winners in the sales ring.

“With us, it’s less about the result and more about the process. We’ve always had a process for doing this. What you need to feed into that process is quality stock,’’ he said.

“When Michael (Freedman) and I got together, he was just back from Hong Kong, I’d been out of the game for a little while. It’s taken a while to get to the point where we’re feeding that stock into the process.’’

The Golden Slipper success came in the second year of the Freedman Brothers' partnership, but Richard was quick to point out that the horse was bought in the first year of the partnership.

“We came here that year when we bought him (Stay Inside) to buy horses to get up and run. We were starting off and needed horses to get up and run,’’ Richard said.

“Luckily, we picked a number of horses and in that bunch, which wasn’t many horses, we only took home eight horses, one was the Golden Slipper winner. That gives people confidence that we still know how to do that. You know, we won a lot of Golden Slippers quite a long time ago, and people wonder if we can still do it, and we delivered.

“I think we’d be right up there with everyone with the number of Group 1 winners the Freedman brothers, collectively, have bought in the sales ring. That’s a skill that we lean on pretty heavily.’’

The Freedman buys

While they don’t like to play in the million dollar space, the Freedman brothers have come close already this week, paying $800,000 for a Snitzel colt out of Our Crown Mistress (Star Witness) and from a family which includes Group 1 star Racing To Win (Encosta De Lago) and The Everest winner Classique Legend (Not A Single Doubt).

It was justified with the comment: “We’re working to an average rather than to a particular number per horse. Sometimes you’ve got to spend a bit more to get the one you like and there are some we’ve spent less on.

“He’s just a great athlete. A great stallion and pedigree we like. He walked the right way, he’s shaped the right way. We often buy a very similar horse over and over again because it’s worth it,’’ Richard said.

“There’s certain tells as part of our IP that we’ve developed looking at yearlings, for me, probably 50 years and (Michael), 45 years. We’ve got it down to a list of attributes they have to have and when they tick all those boxes then we’re in for it.’’

A Written Tycoon was purchased based on the stats of not just the stallion but the broodmare, the broodmare sires, even the studs.

“We do a lot of stats on stallions. We do stats on their broodmares and broodmare sires. We do stats on studs that sell very good horses. While everyone’s keeping stats on the trainers, we’re keeping stats on them too,’’ Richard said.

Gallery: Some of the Freedman Brothers' purchases at the Magic Millions Sale so far, images courtesy of Magic Millions

“They’ve got to fit all those criteria. It’s not just, ‘I like that horse, let’s buy it’. There’s a process."

And one of the few Southern Hemisphere-bred Kingman (GB) colts in the Sale is headed to the Freedman brothers, purchased for $525,000, with the very aim of snaring a stallion.

“He’s probably a stallion more suited for his 3-year-old year than his 2-year-old year. There are certainly some stallion-making races for 3-year-olds as well."