Eat Pie finds sweet spot in allowance dash

Eat Pie, one might say, ended up with egg all over her face in her first U.S. start. Shipped from overseas to race in the Grade 3 Arlington-Washington Lassie at Arlington Park Sept. 8, she stalked the pace for six furlongs before stopping over the final quarter-mile, finishing 10th, beaten over 29 lengths in the mile race.

Monday, when she races in Turfway Parks featured ninth race, a $24,000 first-level allowance going 5?1/2 furlongs, she appears poised for a much better performance.

Cutting back in distance and facing a significantly weaker field, she looms as the filly to beat based on what she did in England prior to racing in the Arlington-Washington Lassie.

In two starts in England, she won at first asking at Lingfield, which like Turfway Park has a Polytrack racing surface, and she followed that race with a seventh-place finish, beaten less than three lengths, in the Group 2 Cherry Hinton Stakes at Newmarket in July.

Trained overseas and for the Arlington-Washington Lassie by trainer Mark Wallace, she has now joined the stable of trainer Eddie Kenneally, who has regularly breezed her over the Turfway Park surface since late November.

Eat Pie, owned by Rebecca Hillen, has a strong pedigree to go along with her promising European form. A daughter of Thunder Gulch, she is out of the stakes-winning Irish-bred dam Millies Choice, who has produced three black-type earners, including Millies Quest, winner of the Grade 3 Lake George at Saratoga in 2000.

Victor Lebron rides Eat Pie.

The opposition is headed by Little Somethin, a 2-year-old Greatness filly who finished second at Hawthorne in an entry-level allowance Dec. 6. She earned a 63 Beyer Speed Figure, the top last-race figure in the nine-horse field.

Although that race came over a traditional dirt track, she has run over Polytrack, winning a maiden $50,000 race by six lengths at Turfway in her debut and following that with a close fifth-place finish in a starter race for 2-year-olds at Keeneland on Oct. 12.

Rodney Prescott has the mount on Little Somethin, who is owned by Greg James and trained by Jason Cook.

Other contenders include Lavenham, a winner of her lone start, which came at the maiden $25,000 level at Churchill Downs in the slop Nov. 21, and Danas Bell, a speedy filly coming off a fourth-place finish versus similar allowance opposition at Turfway on Dec. 1.