Linda Rice

Horse training person Linda Rice, at left.

I'm glued on finding somebody that averages breeze/races every 7 days. Ms. Rice perhaps? The name pops up occasionally. She has a page at the NTRA website. Daughter of Clyde Rice. It's a small world. Ross Staaden's book, which I read, mentions Clyde Rice. Everything I read is good, and this is the daughter! Former trainer, now breeder and horse breaker in Ocala. C. Rice a friend and early influence on D.W. Lukas, but, Linda Rice says she's developed her own training methods. Un-Lukas like I'm thinking, and hoping!

She's streaky occasionally. Gets a lot of wins in a row and makes the newspaper. I saw one of her fillies look very good winning some big stake race at Arlington in 2007 and mumbled to myself, we'll never hear from that horse again. And, never did.(Edit: searched for the horse, unable to find. am I confusing this with another woman trainer?) As i pontificate on occasion, lady trainers, god love 'em, they like to groom more than train, at least in my very limited experience. My attitude toward the girls in athletics is sort of like my attitude to myself in a horse paddock--if you want to play out there with the big boys, behave like the big boys. Let's be polite and say we're a little short on empirical evidence when it comes to women actually training horses.

But, Ms. Rice has a website. I misjudge perhaps. Let's take a look!
http://www.lindariceracing.com/trainers/lrr/public/results.cfm#rr

I took the first 30 horses racing after 1/1/08. You can look up the names and even trace them if you're interested.

There are some interesting horses in the group! Russian Prospector puts Doug O'Neill to shame by racing 19 times this year. Then, "Officer Sheila T. Rex" we'd surely expect that one to last the year, and she did.

The rest? Less lucky, I'm afraid. Of the 30 horses but 8 were still racing on 12/1/08. And, several of those 8 were coming off longer layoffs. Thus, about 27% of the sample made it all the way through the year. How many made it 3 months after 1/1/08? 24 actually for a % of 80%.

How could this be, since O'Neill and Plecher injure half their stable in 3 months? I'd have to do a deeper analysis than I did to answer accurately. But, on cursory analysis Ms. Rice races her horse when healthy significantly more often than O'Neill and Plecher. Her horses might last longer simply because they've raced themselves into condition.

HOWEVER, before I throw too many plaudits, please note that by 7/1/08 Ms. Rice had but 9 of the original 30 still racing. Ms. Rice's horses start dropping like flies after 4 or 5 months in her barn.

BUT Ms. Rice has posted her workouts. I will look at those tomorrow for anything possibly relevant.

Training:
Mon. 12/1 A hard training week last week, speed work yesterday, and frozen snowy ground today with 50 degrees tomorrow, we take the day off for hopefully a nice full week of galloping before the weather implodes next week.