Freedman’s defining faux pas

In the realm of fines, the $750 Lee Freedman will have to fork out for his comments on Twitter on Saturday is nothing more than the cost of an iPad.

But the big picture is totally different – racing has been dragged into the new-age world of social media, maybe not kicking and screaming, but surely a little unprepared for the phenomena and its ramifications, despite the fact that Terry Bailey and the rest of the Racing Victoria integrity department (@racinginsider) are avid uses of Twitter to feed out racing information.

Freedman – Twitter name @freedmanbros – was fined for making a spur-of-the-moment “tweet” minutes after his horse Our Smokin’ Rock was scratched at the barrier before the third race at Caulfield, the sportsbet.com.au Thing Handicap (1200m) for two-year-olds.

Freedman “tweeted”: “World first at caulfield vet scr our smoking rock at gate because he thinks it made a noise!!! What a disgrace” (sic)

Freedman has copped the fine, admitting his choice of words was not in the best interests of racing.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before racing’s officialdom had a conflict with the modern medium of social media. But perhaps one of the most unlikely of persons to cop the first “twitter fine” was Hall of Fame trainer Lee Freedman, a man who until six months ago would have needed help to turn on a computer. The closest Freedman would have been to a tweet would have been waving away the sparrows raiding the feed bins at his training farm, Markdel, on the Mornington Peninsula.

You could have laid a “London to a brick on” that a young social-media savvy jockey, with his or her Facebook and Twitter accounts an adjunct to every day life, would have been the first to cop the wrath of Racing Victoria’s stewards. (I suspect a recent comment on Daniel Ganderton’s Facebook page will attract some interest from Sydney’s chief steward Ray Murrihy).

Freedman is a recent convert to social media as a tool to increase his profile. Be it an attempt to get his views heard by a wider audience, to attract a younger clientele or merely as a marketing tool, Freedman has embraced the concept with verve.

At the time of his troublesome tweet, he had only 200 followers – by late Sunday that figure had grown to close to 800. So any aim to lift his profile has worked, and on Sunday afternoon he was quick to attempt to cash in on his new-found fame by alerting his followers that he has an attractive Haradasun filly looking for new owners. There is method in his madness.

I believe it is the first time any racehorse trainer in the world has used Twitter to communicate his thoughts while at the coal-face of the action – albeit Freedman was at home and not at the races at the time. Imagine being able to tap into the thoughts of an AFL coach during the match, especially immediately after a horrendous umpiring decision. I want to follow Rodney Eade!

But that’s exactly what Freedman provided his followers on Saturday. It was ground-breaking stuff and enthralling to be part of it. Importantly, the use of Twitter and Facebook is probably racing’s best tool to attract a younger audience – it should be encouraged.

We can only hope that Freedman’s brother Anthony takes up on the Twitter craze – if anyone is made for this type of communication it is Anthony Freedman. He would soon develop a cult following – and the RV’s coffers would more than likely benefit.

Lee had the final word on that suggestion, with this tweet: “there is a small dishevelled hut on a windswept hill outside Rye that will only ever hear those (Anthony’s) tweets!”

Since Saturday, Freedman has kept up his use of Twitter with eight tweets in the past 24 hours, including this comment on Sunday from his couch while watching the races on TV: “Loved the steeplechase at Casterton. Brush fences how good!”

Footnote: The June issue of Inside Racing magazine has a story, by Mark Harding, on racing’s “marriage of convenience” with social media, titled, Racing goes social. Subscribe

Danny Power is a long-time user of Twitter and he can be followed through @thethoroughbred – he has 1200 followers.