Consummate politician with willingness to compromise

Racing politics can have a wearying effect on those who represent the dizzying and ever-changing number of bodies and interest groups.

Philip Freedman is an exception, having spent more than 25 years involved in running the sport as part of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association, British Horseracing Board, Jockey Club Estates, the Flat Pattern Panel, the EBF, the Levy Board and the Horsemen's Group.

Freedman's first job in racing came when he took over as managing director of his father Louis's Cliveden Stud in 1988, the year after his family's famous yellow and black spotted silks had been carried by Reference Point to win the Derby.