Rice gets 10 days, fine for Bute overage
Linda Rice, the leading trainer at Aqueduct’s winter meet, has been suspended 10 days and fined $1,000 by the New York Gaming Commission for the finding of an overage of the therapeutic medication phenylbutazone (Bute) in a post-race test of Winter Pool, who won the first race at Aqueduct on Jan. 7.
Both Rice and New York State Gaming Commission steward Braulio Baez Jr. confirmed the penalty, though as of early Thursday afternoon, it had not yet been posted on the commission website.
Rice said she will serve the penalty beginning Monday. That would make her eligible to return March 2. During her suspension, Adam Rice, Linda’s nephew, will oversee the stable and any starters during that period at Aqueduct will race under his name.
Winter Pool was disqualified from purse money and owner Ronald Stewart will have to forfeit the $19,250 first-place purse the horse had earned. Moreover, the horse was claimed out of the race for $12,500 by Robert Falcone Jr., but the stewards ordered the horse be returned to Rice.
Rice was notified that Winter Pool tested for more than the permissible threshold of 0.3 micrograms per millileter of plasma or serum.
Bute is a therapeutic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that is listed as a Class 4 drug by Association of Racing Commissioners International.
Bute is allowed to be administered, typically by injection, to a horse, 48 hours out from a race. Rice said while that was done in Winter Pool’s case, he was also given Bute paste orally following his victory in a $16,000 on Dec. 29. Rice said she hadn’t anticipated running Winter Pool back nine days later and deduced remnants of Bute may have still been in the horse’s system.
Rice said she was also notified that a second horse of hers tested for an overage of Bute. That horse, Afleet Arlene, won a $16,000 claimer by 9 1/2 lengths at Aqueduct on Jan. 21. Afleet Arlene was claimed by Cleveland Johnson but was also ordered returned to Rice.
Rice said she is still deciding whether or not to contest that overage, which would mean having a split of the urine sample tested by an independent laboratory.
“I might send it to a lab because frankly I’m tired of what’s going on here with Bute,” said Rice, who acknowledged Afleet Arlene was given a Bute shot 48 hours out from her race. “I’ve been training at Belmont Park for 30 years. I’ve never had a Bute overage. Ever.”
According to the State Gaming Commission’s website, Rice has had two prior medication violations, neither involving Bute.
Rice said she has instructed her barn to no longer give Bute 48 hours out from a race.
Rice is credited with 21 wins at the Aqueduct meet -- 11 more than her nearest rival -- that began on Jan. 1 before the disqualification of Winter Pool and potential disqualification of Afleet Arlene.
Including Rice’s two, there have been nine known Bute overages called at NYRA tracks since Feb. 2022 after there was only one identified over the previous three years. Since Feb. 2022, trainers Eduardo Jones, Jeffrey Englehart, Tom Morley, Edmund Davis, Gustavo Rodriguez, Kieron Magee, and Michele Giangiulio each have been penalized for Bute overages.
Rice said she’s been told there are more overages -- presumably for other trainers -- pending.
Rice is currently fighting a three-year suspension issued her by the New York Gaming Commission in June 2021 for having improper access to names and past performances of horses who were entered in races in which she was considering entering before entries for those races closed. The New York Gaming Commission alleged this occurred from on or about the 2011-12 Aqueduct race meet through March 15, 2015.
Rice, who was also fined $50,000 for those offenses, received a temporary restraining order from a Supreme Court judge in Schenectady County on June 9, 2021, and the case has yet to be heard.
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