BY SARAH WELK BAYNUM
For generations, the Rice family has been part of the Thoroughbred racehorse industry. For Brandon Rice, that meant being fully immersed in the racehorse industry from day one.
“I was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, near [Penn National], but my family is all originally from Wisconsin. My mom was a jockey there for years, and she worked underneath my grandfather there. My father worked as an assistant trainer there also. They later became a husband-and-wife team running their racing stable,” says Brandon Rice.
When Rice was about five years old, his family moved to Ocala and bought Woodside Ranch. They wanted to take advantage of the temperate climate to develop their young horses.
“At 10-years old, I was already getting on the old jogging horses and then later I was riding chosen younger horses to ride sets on whether it be the weekends or before school. I was also learning to shoe horses when I was 12 and helping out around the farm whether that was mowing grass or swimming horses,” Rice said.
“As a horse racing family, it’s a whole family effort—no one just stays home in their pjs. You get up and you feed horses together, even on Christmas. We would go to the barn since the crew was off for the holiday, feed and take care of the horses. It was a unique Christmas morning to able to see our 100 or so horses, which was therapeutic, exciting and now a precious family memory.”
By the time Rice was 18, he had been galloping horses and helping at the sales with his family farm for some time. He then attended Florida State University and continued to break, train, and gallop horses on the side. Then, he decided to attend a program that took him overseas for several years.
“When I finally returned home, it was no different than when left. I also decided to work for different trainers at places like Saratoga during my 20’s while I cut my teeth, built my skillset and created connections within the business,” Rice said.
But when Rice met his wife, Alexandra, who had a history growing up in the industry as well, they formed a partnership and invested in horses together. Shortly after, RiceHorse Stables was born.
“My now wife, Alexandra, and I were in the same industry of breaking and training these young horses. We grew up in parallel situations under two different families and we ended up merging our styles together as we started dating in our 20s. We knew each other as teenagers since our parents were in the same industry,” Rice said.
They began developing a training system of their own and working with the horses under their new partnership on a portion of Rice’s family farm land.
Today, they typically have about 50 – 75 horses each year, receiving what they call “a RiceHorse education.”
“We want the horses we work with to be the best versions of themselves, even if that’s only at the claiming or allowance level, and all the way up to the graded and stakes levels. We really want them to live up to their best potential—and I feel quite accomplished by that. In the RiceHorse training system, we emphasize riding them properly. We have great wooded trails we ride them on, a lot of turnout, numerous options of where to ride our horses to encourage bravery and taking command well. We work through things such as going past each other, through traffic, switching lanes, taking dirt in the face, popping from the gates and having overall composure. We want our horses to happily accept the process of riding and working with the rider versus an abrupt or abrasive form of manhandling the process,” says Rice.
Rice and his wife work with both their own horses and client horses.
“We’re often hired as an agent to scout the sales up and down the East coast, primarily Keeneland, OBS and Fasig-Tipton sales. We sort through up to 10,000 horses each year trying to find the talented ones, usually yearlings, that can be bought well-priced and given an education,” Rice said.
Rice now also has a small stable of broodmares and is growing their breeding program as well.
“We have been breeding for only five or six years now. There was a mare that was very special to us that we sold well and ended up claiming her back. She had really given us a lot and we felt like we owed her. She was an honest, fast filly and we wanted to see if we could get some foals out of her that had her tenacity and speed. That’s how our breeding program got started. We’re currently breeding to two stallions in our area and breeding and raising the foals on our farm.”
While Rice’s immediate family is now in Ocala, his family roots in the industry run deep and across the country.
“My aunt Linda Rice is a trainer in New York and she’s won about five racing titles in a row up there. She’s certainly playing a big boy’s game in New York and she’s the biggest beacon of hope and source of pride within our family right now. Horses have given us everything we’ve ever had and our horsemanship skills were passed down to us. Her success helps us push forward and aspire to do some great things with horses,” Rice said.
