Beat Your Feet in top form

Beat Your Feet has handled virtually everything that trainer Frank Brothers has asked of her in recent months. In fact, Beat Your Feet has been so sharp recently that she has earned the distinction of being the 116-pound highweight in the $100,000 HBPA Handicap, the first stakes of the meet at Ellis Park in Henderson, Ky.

At the recently ended Churchill Downs meet, Beat Your Feet won twice before finishing a narrowly beaten second in a fourth-level allowance. That string of sharp efforts seem sufficient to make the 5-year-old mare the horse to beat in the HBPA, a one-mile race that drew a field of nine fillies and mares.

Owned by Christiana Stables, Beat Your Feet normally is ridden by Shane Sellers, but Willie Martinez has the call Saturday. Sellers, who has a secondary career as a country music singer, is in his home state of Louisiana this weekend to appear at two concerts. His first compact disc was released Tuesday.

Probably the top challengers to Beat Your Feet are Reason to Talk and Clear Destiny. The rest of the field is Born to Dance, Seven Four Seven, Fly Borboleta, Red n'Gold, Lead Story, and Ravish Me.

Reason to Talk was a front-running winner of the Doubledogdare Stakes at Keeneland on April 16 but has not started since. Trainer David Vance has sent her out for three workouts recently, and she could be dangerous here despite the layoff.

Trainer Rusty Arnold shipped Clear Destiny to Mountaineer Park for her most recent start and the result was a 5 1/2-length victory, her first in a stakes. Clear Destiny has only three victories to go with six runner-up finishes but may be on the verge of turning the corner in her career, as she has now won two of her last three starts.

The HBPA is the local prep for the Grade 3, $200,000 Gardenia Handicap, to be run Aug. 9.

First post Saturday is 12:40 p.m. Central.

Canceled races to be made up

The six races that were lost from the opening-day card due to bad weather Wednesday will be made up over the next three weekends, Ellis racing secretary Doug Bredar said. "We're adding one race per card on each of the next three Saturdays and Sundays," he said.

Ellis normally runs 10 races daily, meaning 11 races will be carded on each of those days, starting Saturday.

Four races were run Wednesday before a thunderstorm dumped nearly three inches of rain on the track. Racing resumed Thursday as scheduled.