A quickfire round with trainer Richard Freedman
TDN: What was your 2018 racing highlight?
RF: I think Winx’s fourth G1 Cox Plate will be everyone’s racing highlight in 2018… or at least it should be.
TDN: What would be your dream Christmas present?
RF: A few nice winners for a good bunch of owners in my stable – nothing more than that really.
TDN: What horse or sire are you looking to follow in the New Year?
RF: I have a liking for Real Impact (JPN) (Deep Impact {JPN}) as a stallion prospect. I’m keen to see what they look like at the yearling sales.
TDN: If you had one wish for the racing industry, what would it be?
RF: I wish the Australian racing industry would embrace the need for better training facilities. The top tier of racing jurisdictions train their horses on dedicated training facilities, not on small, narrow, tight-turning, training tracks inside the racetrack.
England has Newmarket (and more), France has Chantilly (and more), Japan has Miho and Ritto (and more), South Africa has theirs too. Even Hong Kong has now created a state-of-the-art training centre in China.
Let’s create some public training centres in Australia to rival the best in the world; where horses can have a variety of training tracks and surfaces, and all the other facilities; where staff can live on-site in decent accommodation with working conditions more conducive to attracting people to the industry. It could be done in Australia, if we have the administrators with the vision to do it.
It would be the greatest, lasting legacy any administration could leave for future generations. The horses would stay sounder, happier and healthier, and so would the personnel. We could train and develop stayers better than we do now.
It would benefit everyone in the game, either directly or indirectly. Sadly, the priorities right now seem to be top-end prizemoney, new grandstands and corporate entertainment facilities (sigh….).
Trainer, Richard Freedman
