New York State Gaming Commission increases Linda Rice fine to $100,000

The New York State Gaming Commission on Tuesday approved a $100,000 fine for trainer Linda Rice in an amended penalty that was required after a state appellate court threw out an earlier three-year suspension the commission handed to Rice.

Brian O'Dwyer, chairman of the commission, said during a meeting Tuesday that the commission voted unanimously to increase the fine to $100,000, up from an earlier fine of $50,000 that had accompanied the three-year suspension. Rice was handed the penalties for “conduct detrimental to racing” for her role in obtaining the names and past performances of horses from racing officials prior to entry time.

Rice appealed the suspension and fine under a so-called Article 78 proceeding. In a June ruling earlier this year, the court said that the three-year suspension was “so disproportionate to the offense and shockingly unfair as to constitute an abuse of discretion as a matter of law” and remanded the case back to the NYSGC for reconsideration of the penalty. The ruling did not take issue with the initial fine of $50,000.

O'Dwyer said that the commission “respectfully disagreed” with the court’s conclusion that Rice should not face any suspension, but he said that the commission “was constrained by law.”

The case concerned communications Rice had with the racing offices at New York Racing Association tracks from 2011 to 2015. The allegations did not surface until five years later, and Rice received the penalty in May 2021 after a hearing that stretched over the course of a month.

Also at the meeting, Dr. Scott Palmer, the commission’s equine medical director, provided an update for the commission on an ongoing review of a spate of fatalities that occurred at Saratoga during its summer meet, with many of the fatalities clustered around two popular weekend dates.

Palmer stressed that the 13 racing and training fatalities at Saratoga were “consistent” with the total racing and training fatalities at other recent meets, but the number of racing fatalities was much higher this year when compared to training fatalities.

Palmer said that the review is focusing on several “commonalities” between the fatalities, including the fact that all but one of the exercise-related fatalities were due to a fetlock injury; that the vast majority of the injuries occurred late in the race or in the gallop-out, and that on many of the days on which a fatality occurred, there were changes in moisture content in the racing surfaces.

Palmer noted that 65 races at the Saratoga meet were taken off the turf this year, compared to 17 last year, due an “unprecedented amount of rainfall” this year. He said that the finding that 92 percent of the injuries occurred in the fetlock was “shocking,” citing historical studies that have found that approximately 50 percent of fatal injuries were due to fetlock injuries.

“Fifty percent is already a big number,” Palmer said. “But 92 percent is unprecedented.”

In response to the Saratoga fatalities, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority has already proposed a rule that will require a 30-day layoff from racing and 14-day layoff from training after any injection into a fetlock joint. That rule is expected to go into effect by the end of November.

Palmer said that the findings regarding moisture content should lead to more studies regarding how changes in moisture can impact risk factors for racing.

“It’s a clear indication for aggressive research to be done to come up with new ways to look at moisture,” Palmer said. “We have to look at rainfall differently.”

Also at the meeting:

* Robert Williams, executive director of the commission, explained the role of the stewards in an Aug. 5 incident at Saratoga in which three races in the late pick five were switched from the turf to the dirt while the horses were loading into the gate for the first leg of the bet. Because of the surface switch, all three turf races became “all-wins” under New York racing rules.

Williams said that NYRA officials had asked the stewards to delay the start of the race for 10 minutes to give bettors time to change their bets. However, the stewards declined to delay the start, Williams said, because two horses in the nine-horse race had already been loaded into the gate when NYRA made the request. The race was for 2-year-old maiden fillies.

Williams said that the stewards believed that backing the “young, fractious” horses out of the gate would have created safety and integrity risks.

“The stewards appropriately put the safety of the horses, the jockeys, and gate crew first,” Williams said.

The decision not to delay the start infuriated bettors. NYRA’s chief executive, David O’Rourke, issued an apology for the incident and NYRA seeded a pick five later in the meet with $100,000 in track money in an attempt at amends.

* The commission approved the proposal of a rule that would prohibit a claimed horse from making a start outside the state within 60 days of a claim or the end of the meet, whichever is longer, up from a previous rule that placed claimed horses under a 30-day restriction. The rule will be posted for public comment before going up for final approval.

* At the end of the meeting, O'Dwyer, the commission chairman, said that the NYSGC and New York Department of Labor have reached an agreement in which the department will be required to notify the commission any time it initiates an investigation of a licensee for unfair labor practices. Over the past five years, a large number of trainers in New York have been cited for labor violations.

O'Dwyer said that the commission will now begin to consider “further action” against trainers who are charged with labor violations, including fines and suspensions.

“This commission does not take those violations lightly,” O'Dwyer said.

:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.