OZONE PARK, N.Y. – These are both successful and stressful times for trainer Linda Rice. Coming off a fabulous 2019, where she won 145 races and amassed a personal-best $7.25 million in purse earnings, Rice is rapidly closing in on a milestone achievement. Entering Thursday’s card at Aqueduct, Rice has won 1,996 races. As early as this weekend, she will become just the third female trainer to achieve 2,000 career wins. Kim Hammond and Kathleen O’Connell are the other two women to hit that mark. Rice is the leading female trainer in stakes wins (198) and graded stakes (46). Over the weekend, Rice became just the 32nd North American-based trainer to surpass the $80 million mark in purse earnings. Rice, who has runners in three races at Aqueduct on Thursday and four on Friday, said she is excited to get to the 2,000-win mark. “That’s a big number,” said Rice, who won her 1,000th race in July 2011. “I say to myself “Will I get to 3,000?’ I better celebrate this one.” Rice, 55, has succeeded on arguably the toughest circuit in the country – the New York Racing Association. She acknowledges perhaps not getting the same opportunities as her male counterparts, but says training horses is a tough game regardless of gender. “I think the gender gap has narrowed a lot since I’ve been training in New York,” Rice said “There’s been a lot of successful female trainers since I started. When I started, there were fewer. But do I still think there is a little bit of a gender gap? Yeah, it’s possible. It’s a tough game all the way around.” Rice has been based in New York for nearly three decades and in 2009 became the first female trainer to win the training title at Saratoga with 20 wins. In each of the last seven years, Rice has finished in the top five in wins on the NYRA circuit, including 2019 when her 106 victories were second only to Chad Brown’s 142. In addition to winning the 2009 title, a lot of Rice’s other major achievements have come at Saratoga. In 1998, Things Change gave Rice her first career Grade 1 victory by taking the Spinaway. She has won eight Grade 1 stakes with seven horses, including the 2018 Fourstardave, also at Saratoga, with Voodoo Song. In 2017, Voodoo Song won four races at one Saratoga meet. In 2000, City Zip won all the graded stakes for juvenile males at Saratoga, including the Grade 1 Hopeful. In 2014 at Saratoga, Rice won two Grade 1 stakes – the Alfred G. Vanderbilt and Forego – with Palace, a horse she claimed for $20,000 in the fall of 2012. Rice is one of the most successful claiming trainers on the circuit, something she attributes to time spent looking for horses at auction. “In some ways I started claiming more because sales have become so expensive and I found that my many, many years of shopping auctions, whether it be conformation or pedigree, was very helpful in the claiming game as well,” Rice said. On her success in stakes races, Rice said: “I’m not one to overmatch my horses. I try to place them realistically. So when I’m in stakes races I’d like to think I’m well meant.” As proud as she is of her accomplishments, Rice also noted that over the last 10 years she has retired 85 horses who have gone on to second careers. “I think that’s important and we’re invested in that as well,” Rice said. In addition to the success, Rice has her share of stress. Like many trainers on the backstretch of New York tracks, Rice was the subject of an investigation from both the state and federal department of labor. Rice was fined just over $100,000 by both departments for failure to pay proper wages. Next month, the New York State Gaming Commission will hold a hearing and could decide to suspend or revoke Rice’s license while also fining her for improper acts. The gaming commission alleges that from on or about the 2011-12 Aqueduct meet through March 2015 Rice paid money to members of the racing office at NYRA tracks in exchange for information on which horses were in races she was considering entering. Rice has previously denied the accusations. On Monday, citing the advice of her attorneys, she declined to talk about the specifics of the case. “Obviously, just more stress, but hopefully that will get resolved and we’ll get to the other side of that as well,” she said.