Trainer Linda Rice will serve a five-day suspension (Feb. 21-25) and must pay the state $2,500 in fines for scratching two horses out of the first race at Aqueduct on Jan. 27.

Rice had For Honor and Littlefirefighter entered in a $25,000 claiming race. She scratched For Honor because she said the horse had been treated earlier in the week with a medication that, had she run, would have likely have come up with a positive drug test. Rice was fined $500 for that scratch, with the ruling from New York State Gaming Commission reading that Rice "failed to tender to business in a proper manner."

Rice scratched Littlefirefighter out of the same race because she said the owner, Iris Smith, did not want to run the horse for a claiming price. For refusing to run Littlefirefighter, Rice was suspended 10 days -- reduced to five for Rice waiving her right of appeal, and fined $2,000.

The five-day suspension covers only three days of racing at Aqueduct -- Feb. 23-25.

Rice, the second-leading trainer at the current Aqueduct meet, is also under investigation by the New York State Gaming Commission for allegedly making improper payments to employees of the New York Racing Association racing department and receiving information she shouldn't have been privvy to before the closing of entries for races she had the option to enter horses in.