Members of Western Australia’s racing and breeding industries will be very saddened to learn former TBWA President Tony Freebairn has died in South Australia following a brave battle with cancer. He was hospitalised last week and passed away aged 86 on Sunday.
Based on the Eyre Peninsula, Freebairn and his wife Liz operated Gillies Downs sheep station although breeding thoroughbreds remained a passion with their most recent winner Teardrop Rotation (D’Argento) completing a hat-trick at Murray Bridge in December.
Since returning to South Australia, Tony and Liz also bred and part-owned Booker (Written Tycoon) to win the G1 Oakleigh Plate (1100m) at Caulfield in 2019. They sold her to Barrie and Midge Griffiths for $230,000 at the 2016 Inglis Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale and kept a share with good friends Bill and Annie Rigg.
Tony and Liz Freebairn at Gillies Downs in 2015
Tony was TBWA President in the 1980s and into the 1990s and leaves a legacy that’s been a godsend to the local industry. Along with Fairfields Stud owner Sally Oakes, he was instrumental in launching the Sunspeed Bonus Scheme which evolved into the Westspeed Bonus Scheme.
A down-to-earth good bloke, Tony was blessed with an energetic, self-belief and surrounded himself with the right people like his business partner Jeremy Hayes. They had hit pay-dirt in 1971 with the discovery of a huge mineral-sands deposit at Eneabba.
Tony purchased a Chittering Valley property a few years later and named it Haddow Stud after a distant forebear. He struck it rich again standing a British-bred import named Jungle Boy.
The Nasrullah-line grey stallion was an instant stud success and was still going strong as a 22 year-old bull covering 50 mares in 1989.
Jungle Boy hit the ground running with consecutive LR Queen’s Plate winners Hasten Lass (1977) and Pure Gamble (1978) followed by Hakim Boy (1979 G2 WA Sires’ Produce Stakes) and his first Group 1 winner Queen Inca in the 1980 WA Oaks when it was an elite-level classic.
That early success was mirrored at the WA Yearling Sales when Haddow Stud topped vendor turnover with one of its first consignments from Lower Chittering. Freebairn had ensured a readymade broodmare portfolio buying the likes of Paperbury, New Plan, Regal Charm, Copper Beech, Red Mittens and Aquanella at the Perringa Stud Dispersal Sale.
Perringa Stud’s Dot Parry owned Aquanella (Wateringbury) who was a full-sister to G1 W S Cox Plate Champion Aquanita.
Jeremy Hayes also raced Jungle Boy’s Group-winning fillies Lost World with Len Morton and Wild Side with Buster O’Malley. Lost World won the LR Pinjarra Guineas in 1981 before going east to land the G3 Surround Stakes at Warwick Farm.
Wild Side won the G2 WA Sires’ Produce Stakes in 1981 prior to a running double in the G3 Roma Cups of 1982 and ’83.
Jungle Boy (pictured) was in full-cry by the time the full-sisters Jungle Mist and Jungle Dawn claimed a combined 11 black-type races for south-west breeder Len Craddock.
Jungle Mist won the 1985 Winterbottom Stakes (1200m) when it was still a Group 2 before Jungle Dawn gave the ‘Grey Gazelles’ a well-deserved Group 1 with a Railway Stakes (1600m) victory to remember in 1987.
Tony and Liz moved back to South Australia and later purchased Gillies Downs sheep station in 2009. The surname ‘Freebairn’ is associated historically with numerous other locations in the vicinity.
The family goes back to James Freebairn and his wife Jean who sailed from Hamilton in Scotland with their 6 sons and 3 daughters and arrived in South Australia in October 1849. Jean’s maiden name was Haddow.
Tony Freebairn’s Funeral Service will be held on Thursday, 5th March at 1pm (Adelaide time) at the Chapel of Berry’s Funeral Home in Norwood. It will be streamed here
