Apprentice rider Rice finding her best stride
In less than a year, jockey Taylor Rice went from hanging on to fitting in.
A year ago at this time, Rice still hadn’t ridden in her first race. She spent most of her July afternoons standing alongside the starting gate at Presque Isle Downs, watching how riders and horses behaved and broke from the gate.
On Friday, when the gates swing open for the 146th Saratoga meet, the 26-year-old Rice will be in the starting gate for two of the 10 races as she looks to continue to make her mark as the top apprentice jockey in New York riding against the best jockeys outside of Southern California.
Rice had a terrific Belmont spring-summer meeting, winning 30 races from 193 mounts – including two New York-bred stakes – and finishing eighth in the jockey standings. Over the last six cards, Rice won seven races, including three on the July 6 program.
“This is way more than I expected,” Rice said during a recent interview at Belmont Park. “I was hoping to do well. I had a great winter, but coming to Belmont with all the jockeys coming here, obviously it was going to be more difficult. I was hoping to do well and win races, and I think I’ve done way better than I originally thought.”
Rice is the niece of the trainer Linda Rice, who in 2009 became the first woman to win a trainer title at Saratoga. Taylor Rice will not win the Saratoga jockey title, but she hopes to make the most of the last seven weeks of her apprenticeship. She becomes a journeyman jockey Sept. 3, two days day after Saratoga closes.
“By no means do I lower my expectations,” Rice said. “I’m not sure what I expect. I’m just going to keep working hard and hope this wave keeps going.”
Rice is named on two horses for Friday’s opening-day card. She is listed on three horses Saturday, including Less Than Perfect, whom she rides for her brother Kevin in the Grade 3, $150,000 Sanford. On Friday, in the fourth, she rides Royalty, a 4-year-old maiden making her first start in more than a year and first for Jimmy Jerkens. In the eighth, she rides Rakin’ Gold, a horse Rice won on last out for Dominick Schettino at Belmont.
It is the life of an apprentice to get replaced often on horses, even coming off a win. For example, Rice won an allowance race on Caroline Thomas but will not ride her back in Saturday’s Grade 1 Diana. Apprentice jockeys do not get the five-pound weight allowance in stakes. Trainer Barclay Tagg has tabbed Joe Rocco to ride.
Rice likely will keep the mount on Wonder Gal, a first-time starter she guided to 14-length debut win in the Lynbrook Stakes. That was one of five winners Rice rode for trainer Leah Gyarmati at Belmont.
“For being an apprentice, she’s really intelligent,” Gyarmati said. “She doesn’t lose her cool. She doesn’t make rash decisions. She’s a really good horseman. She’s got a good feel for the horse and what it could or couldn’t do.”
Richard Migliore, the former jockey who now is a television racing analyst, also praised Rice for her smarts.
“From a mental aspect, she’s really developed a lot over the last several months,” Migliore said. “I really liked the fact when she came to Belmont the first week, she appeared a little bit lost to me, but you could see she made an effort, and she figured it out. Some people never get the hang of it. The thing that needs to come from her – and it’s gotten better – is her physical strength. But for a young rider, she’s got the hardest thing to learn down, and that’s the patience and seeing a race well.”
Rice won on her first mount last Aug. 4 at Presque Isle Downs. She said that horse just went to the front and she hung on. She recalls her second mount better.
“My horse stood in the gate, and I was dead last, and I remember catching up to the pack and going, ‘Oh man, where am I going to go now?’” she said. “Everything was running so fast, and now almost a year later, it has slowed down so much, and I can analyze and handle and ride. You’re doing so many things at one time. A year ago, I was doing one thing, and that was staying on.”
Rice believes now she fits in.
“I don’t feel like I’m the bug rider and by no means the girl,” Rice said. “I am another jockey. I go out there, and the rest of the jocks aren’t worried – ‘Here’s this bug girl in the race. We got to watch out.’ I belong, and I’m making decisions, and I make good competition.”