Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything
While he carries one of the most famous surnames in Australian racing, Mitch Freedman has no connection to the family many readers will be familiar with. Hailing from a family of bookmakers, Freedman chose a slightly different pathway to his predecessors when electing to go down the training route.
Mitch Freedman has trained two stakes winners already this season, Attrition (Churchill {Ire}) and Skybird (Exosphere).
He maintains the second-best winning strike rate of the top 20 Victorian trainers.
Freedman purchased both his current season stakes winners as yearlings for a combined sum of $280,000.
Freedman has netted over $1.1 million already this season which is already more than he collected in his past three respective training seasons.
A decade into his training career, Freedman has prepared 270 winners including numerous at stakes level. While he has cemented himself as one of the country’s most promising up and coming trainers, Freedman was still on the hunt for a key milestone until just a couple of weeks ago. In the space of a fortnight, Freedman would prepare Attrition to secure his first elite winner while also notching up another Group victory with the unbeaten talent Skybird.
| 2023/24 | 12 | 57 | 21% | $1,176,670 |
| 2022/23 | 24 | 174 | 14% | $1,163,285 |
| 2021/22 | 24 | 167 | 14% | $1,146,875 |
| 2020/21 | 23 | 203 | 11% | $1,023,980 |
| 2019/20 | 37 | 326 | 11% | $2,353,308 |
| 2018/19 | 40 | 280 | 14% | $1,205,015 |
Table: Mitch Freedman's training performance by season
In the past month, Mitchell Freedman has recorded five wins at a winning strike rate of 24 per cent and in doing so has netted a whopping $900,000 in prizemoney. Just three months into the new season, Freedman has already surpassed last season’s total earnings. From 57 starters he has trained 12 winners at a strike rate of 21 per cent which has him well on song to record his best training season to date. Currently sitting just inside the top 20 in the Victorian Training Premiership, Freedman is currently splitting Danny O’Brien and Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr by winning strike rate. More so, he is collecting on average $19,000 in prizemoney at every start which is considerably better than his next best effort which occurred in the 2019/20 season ($6500 per start).
| Group 1 | 10 | 1 | 10% |
| Group 2 | 19 | 2 | 10% |
| Group 3 | 20 | 1 | 5% |
| Listed | 26 | 2 | 7% |
| Total | 75 | 6 | 8% |
Table: Mitch Freedman's all-time stakes results
While the G1 Toorak H. was his first winner at the elite level, he is no stranger to stakes success having trained a pair of Group 2 winners, a Group 3 winner and two at Listed level. From 75 starters in stakes company Freedman strikes at a very respectable eight per cent winners to runners. Attrition’s Toorak H. victory was the Ballarat horseman’s first stakes success in almost two years with his previous black-type winner occurring in February 2022 when he prepared stable veteran Ho Ho Khan (NZ) (Makfi {GB}) to win the G3 Hobart S. Both of his stakes winners this season have been guided by Beau Mertens who has developed a formidable association with Freedman. From five starts this season he has ridden four winners including a hat-trick on the unbeaten Skybird.
While he can clearly prepare a quality racehorse, he also has an eye for future talent. His elite talent Attrition was one of four purchases made under his own name at the 2021 Inglis Premier Yearling Sale. Hailing from the first crop of Coolmore’s promising globetrotter Churchill (Ire), Freedman went to $180,000 to secure the imposing colt from the Mill Park Stud draft.
Gallery: Mitch Freedman's stakes winners this season, images courtesy of The Image Is Everything
A year later, Freedman spotted an Exosphere filly from the HP Thoroughbreds draft at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale and subsequently went to $110,000 to secure the filly. She would turn out to be the ultra-impressive G2 Fillies Classic winner Skybird who looks to be one of the most promising 3-year-old fillies in the country. From relatively modest purchase prices, Atritition and Skybird have accumulated a combined total of $1.2 million in prizemoney from only a handful of starts. Another of the astute horseman’s purchases came in the early years of his career with his 2016 $100,000 Inglis Classic Yearling Sale purchase, six-time winner Bravo Tango (Congrats {USA}) who netted a healthy $300,000 in his 21 career starts.
While his flagship horse Attrition missed the $10 million Golden Eagle last month due to a minor setback, Freedman certainly has plenty to look forward to with his exciting filly Skybird, a clear favourite to earn him a second elite-level victory in next weekend’s G1 Thousand Guineas at Caulfield.
