Linda Rice

Born: March 7, 1964, Racine, Wisconsin
Resident: Floral Park, N.Y.
2007: (440 60 .14)

Highlights

Presented with the Fourstardave Award for Outstanding Achievement in Saratoga in 2000 by the New York Turf Writers Association.
Saddled City Zip to a sweep of Saratoga's three major stakes for juveniles in 2000 - the Sanford, the Saratoga Special and the Hopeful. City Zip became just the fourth horse in history, and the first since Dehere in 1993, to sweep all three races.
Won the first Grade 1 stakes race of her career when Things Change took the 1998 Spinaway Stakes.
Became the first female trainer to win a Grade 1 stakes race at Keeneland, when Tenski won the 1998 Queen Elizabeth.
In 1995, she won the Astoria with Zee Lady and the Tremont with Rosie O'Greta, the only filly to win the Tremont in 105 years.
Soldier Field, a 3-year-old graded-stakes winner on the turf, equaled two records, one on the turf and one on the main track.
Campaigned numerous stakes horses, including Double Booked, Ready Jet Go, Shoot to Kill, Premiere Express, Zee Lady, Rosie O'Greta, Lady Lear, Torgan, The Silver Move and Rapid Selection.
The following horses set course records: Fabulous Force at Saratoga; Zee Lady and Soldier Field at Aqueduct; Lady Lear at Belmont Park; and Double Booked at Laurel and Pimlico.

Linda's father, Clyde, is a highly respected horseman. A longtime friend of trainer D. Wayne Lukas, Clyde picked out and sold Lukas many of his early stakes winners. Brothers Brian, Curt and Wayne and her mother, Jean, are all involved in the Thoroughbred business. Her parents retired a year ago from running their training center in Florida and that her brother Brian is now using it "as an annex."

After the family moved to Pennsylvania when she was nine, she worked for her father as an exercise rider and assistant for many years. "I learned all the basic premises of educating two-year-olds from my father," she said. "And I've taken them in different directions from there. With my whole family in the business, I had a good education training and breaking, and I expanded on that."

Linda attended Penn State University for two years and studied computer science. In 1986, she left college and took out her trainer's license. She won her first race at Garden State Park with Contraboss on June 3, 1987. About that time, her family relocated to Florida and she took over her father's stable in Pennsylvania. She moved into the New Jersey/Florida circuit three years later and then to New York in December of 1991.

Her first big horses were Ready Jet Go, who ran in the 1988 Breeders' Cup Sprint, and top-class grass horse Double Booked. Her first Grade I winner was Things Change, winner of the 1998 Spinaway Stakes. She has saddled more than 25 added-money winners, including 2001 stakes winners City Zip, Spruce Run, Sparkling Number, Quick Blue, Silver Tornado and Silver Rail. City Zip is the first horse she has trained for Carl Bowling.

Linda attends the bulk of the yearling and two-year-old sales. This year she bought 20 yearlings at Keeneland and seven at Saratoga for different clients. She estimates that she buys about two-thirds of the horses at yearling sales and one-third at juvenile sales. "I like to spend more time cultivating them. It's a longer process, but it's got greater rewards. There are greater possibilities when you buy them and develop them yourself."

She presently has 30 horses in New York and 30 more in New Jersey. City Zip was her second Breeders' Cup starter.