Rice could still face penalties from New York Gaming Commission
?q=100)
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Though she no longer faces a license revocation, trainer Linda Rice could still face some penalty from the New York State Gaming Commission for the case involving her having improper access to names and other information regarding entries to races she was considering entering before those races were drawn for approximately a three-year period beginning in 2011-12.
In June, an appellate court judge overturned the Gaming Commission’s three-year revocation of Rice’s license -- issued in May 2021 -- saying the penalty was “disproportionate to the offense and so shockingly unfair as to constitute an abuse of discretion as a matter of law.”
The judge remitted the case to the Gaming Commission to reassess the penalty “with constraint that any reassessed penalty does not contain a license revocation,” Gaming Commission executive director Rob Williams said at Thursday’s commission meeting.
Williams said the Gaming Commission and Rice’s attorney, Andy Turro, will be asked to resubmit briefs with respect to penalty and the commission should be set to consider a revised penalty at its September meeting.
The Gaming Commission did fine Rice $50,000 and that part of the penalty was not overturned by the appellate judge.
Rice has been the leading trainer at each meet of the New York Racing Association circuit since last fall’s Aqueduct meet. She entered Thursday’s 16th program as the leading trainer at the Saratoga meet with 15 wins.
Also at Thursday’s meeting, the Commission voted unanimously to propose multiple changes to the claiming regulations.
The proposed changes would make changes to claiming eligibility to allow an owner who has started a horse within 120 days at any circuit to claim at New York tracks. The current rules make eligible only owners who have participated at the preceding NYRA race meet.
The proposed rule will make an owner eligible to claim if he hadn’t made a claim at a New York track within 60 days. The current rule states that a claimant must have made a claim within 30 days, but the commission acknowledged that owners may get shut out of making a successful claim during a given 30-day period.
Additionally, the commission proposes reducing from 30 to 20 days the amount of time for which a claimed horse can run back for a price equal to what the horse had been claimed for.
Lastly, the proposal would extend from 30 to 60 days for when a horse claimed in New York would be permitted to race outside of New York. An exception would be for horses claimed at the end of the Finger Lakes meet, leaving that period at 30 days.
These proposals were made after the commission met with NYRA, the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, and Finger Lakes and its horsemen’s group.
:: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.