All About Allie cuts back for Oaklawn's Dixie Belle

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. – The $50,000 Dixie Belle will be Oaklawn Park’s opening-day feature by default. The track was to launch its meet Friday, but Mother Nature interfered with those plans and the season is expected to instead begin Saturday.

Maybe it’s fitting. The Dixie Belle has often served as the first stakes of the Oaklawn meet, but it was bumped this year in favor of the $75,000 Fifth Season. That race for older horses will now be run Sunday, so it will be the 3-year-old fillies who ring in Oaklawn 2011.

All About Allie will be part of an eight-horse field. Others set to start include Lady Giacamo, an undefeated stakes winner who will be making her first start since June.

There was no training at Oaklawn this week due to freezing temperatures, but All About Allie’s schedule was not disrupted as she will be shipping in from a training center.

“We haven’t missed any time with her,” said David Whited, who trains All About Allie. “She’s stayed on schedule.”

All About Allie has never lost at one turn and will be cutting back to six furlongs for the Dixie Belle. She comes into the race off her lone defeat, a fifth-place finish in the Grade 3, $500,000 Delta Downs Princess at a mile on Nov. 20.

“She didn’t perform as well at Delta as I thought she could have, so we’ll go back to that one turn and see where we go from there,” Whited said.

He added that All About Allie had a rough trip in the Princess after breaking from the outside post in the field of nine. She entered that race on top of her game, having won the $50,000 E.L. Gaylord Memorial at Remington Park on Oct. 10. All About Allie stalked the pace in the 6 1/2-furlong Gaylord and exploded to the lead in the stretch, winning by four lengths to equal her best Beyer Speed Figure, a 71.

All About Allie’s other wins have come in the $50,000 Lady Razorback for Arkansas-breds at Louisiana Downs in September and a maiden special weight at Prairie Meadows in July.

“She’s a big, powerful, nice filly,” Whited said. “I’m hoping everything works out good.”

Cliff Berry has the mount Saturday.

Lady Giacamo, a stakes winner last summer at Lone Star Park, is making her first start since having a small bone chip removed from one of her knees. Martin Escobar rides for trainer Allen Milligan.