Anything You Can Do...

Clearly this is the year of the woman. First Rachel Alexandra beats the boys on the track and then Linda Rice becomes the first woman to win a training title at Saratoga. Rice defeated Todd Pletcher for the distinction, 20-19.

Pletcher, who is known for training barns full of horses, won with 19 of his 134 starters. Rice, by contrast, won 20 of her 75 starters, with eighteen of her victories coming on the turf.

"This is as good as I've ever felt," Rice told the New York Times. "It's an absolute thrill. This took a lot of years and a lot of hard work." Not to mention, a lot of patience. Rice has been training since 1987 and slowly but steadily racking up victories. Her current stable consists of 50 horses compared to Pletcher's 250.

To give trainers like Pletcher serious competition required creative planning on Rice's part. She admits she took "a lot of chances" and "entered as many horses" as she could to give herself a chance, but was still worried that Pletcher could come from behind and catch her at the wire.

"The last couple of days had me concerned," she said. "You're so close and you don't know if you'll ever get that close again...It came down to the last couple of races. We made it exciting."

Pletcher almost caught her on the final day of the meet when Eskendereya, one of his six starters that day, finished second. In the Hopeful Stakes, Pletcher's last chance to catch Rice, his two starters, One Note Samba and Aikenite, were never serious contenders.

"To walk in the winner's circle and get awarded with the leading trainer title and be the first woman to do that at a major race meet just makes it that much more special," Rice remarked.