Lee Freedman

David Lee Freedman (born 12 August 1956) is an Australian thoroughbred racehorse trainer. and Hall of Fame inductee. In partnership with brothers Anthony, Michael, and Richard, he has been a prolific winner of Australia's major races in past 20 years, with four Golden Slippers, four Caulfield Cups, two Cox Plates, and five Melbourne Cups, including two of the three won by Makybe Diva. On 19 June 2007 he won the prestigious King's Stand Stakes at the United Kingdom's Royal Ascot racecourse with his champion mare, Miss Andretti.

Early life Freedman was born 12 August 1956, in Sydney to Anthony William and Estelle Dawn Freedman. 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.

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,

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 and 2005 Melbourne Cups 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.

During the 2000s Freedman was regarded as Victoria's premier horse trainer, and along with Bart Cummings, Gai Waterhouse, David A. Hayes and John Hawkes, among Australia's best.

In the 2006–07 season, the Freedman-trained sprinter Miss Andretti won four G1 races (the Manikato, Lightning and Australia Stakes and the Newmarket Handicap) and placed in two others. In June 2007, Miss Andretti won the G2 King's Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot, in course record time.

Following a decline in success for Freedman Brothers, Lee Freedman retired from training in August 2011. He later admitted the strain of failure heavily impacted his personal life. 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, 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 the 2017–18 season, 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. 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.

Freedman has two daughters, Emma and Georgia, with his ex-wife Janelle. Emma is a radio and television presenter.