Freedman ready to call Sydney home again

A meeting with Racing NSW will determine when Michael Freedman and his ex-foreman Edward O’Rourke can join forces to become a training partnership.

Freedman has returned from an aborted training stint in Hong Kong with the pair to meet the licencing committee on Wednesday.

“We’ll get through that and assuming that goes OK I would hope it’s soon after that,” Freedman told RSN927.

Freedman and his wife Anna decided to return to Sydney, primarily for family reasons, where their teenage triplets are at school.

He said it wasn’t an easy decision.

“In the end there was a number of factors involved, the main one being my wife and I were missing our kids and vice versa,” he said.

“We figured at the stage of life we are at, where I want to be and enjoying my training, we made the decision to come back.”

After a successful career in Singapore, Freedman headed to Sydney before taking up the Hong Kong stint.

The Hong Kong foray didn’t start well when a malfunctioning walking machine resulted in varying degrees of injury to nine horse with one being euthanased.

“It was far from ideal before the first season for me which made it reasonably tough and I found it difficult to get any real traction with owners,” Freedman said.

“We had our share of winners and placegetters fairly consistently but I got to the stage where I wasn’t enjoying it.

“It was possibly a better option to come back home and be closer to the kids and reboot here.”

The youngest of four brothers, who are all trainers, Freedman spent eight years in Singapore training many Group One winners including dual Horse of the Year Super Easy before returning to Australia in early 2016.

His eldest brother Lee Freedman currently leads the trainers’ premiership in Singapore while Anthony trains in Victoria and Richard at Rosehill in Sydney.