Rice not confident she'll be atop standings again
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Trainer Linda Rice won the first race of the 2023 Saratoga meet and the last, and a whole bunch of races in between, which enabled her to tie Chad Brown for the most wins at the meet with 35. It was the second time Rice had won or shared the Saratoga crown, having done so outright in 2009.
Rice is not going to Saratoga this week confident she can contend again this summer.
“I think its going to be hard to repeat that this year, maybe next year,” Rice said. “My barn is not exactly where I want it to be right now. I see some holes that I’ve got to fill. It’s not diverse enough.”
Rice, who did win 23 races at the Belmont at Aqueduct spring meet – good for second behind Brown – said she is lacking the quality she feels is necessary to win some of the better allowance races and New York-bred stakes.
“I retired a lot of horses last year, some of the better horses for the better races I don’t have and I don’t have a lot of the quality New York-breds that I’ve had over the past years,” Rice said. “I have to accept that we’re not going to tie and win every year. We’re going to go up there and hopefully have a good meet, but I think Chad’s safe.”
Rice does have entrants in six of Thursday’s 11 races, though two of those races are turf races where her entrants are for the main track only.
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