Tap Dancing Splashes to Hobert Summers Memorial Win

May 06, 2009 Gary Yunt

Elizabeth Alexander’s Tap Dancing held off a late bid from Silver Mountain by a length to win the featured $43,760 Hobert Summers Memorial over a “sloppy” track at Churchill Downs in a field reduced to four on Wednesday afternoon.

            The winner covered the 1 ¼ miles in 2:08.50 for the allowance test that was taken off the Matt Winn Turf Course.

            Trained by Michelle Nihei, Tap Dancing collared pace-setting Guadalcanal at the three-eighths pole after Guadalcanal had led the field through fractions of :25.11, :50.71 and 1:16.49.

            In giving jockey Julien Leparoux his second victory of the day and career win No. 993, Tap Dancing returned mutuels of $7.20 and $3.60. Silver Mountain, ridden by Miguel Mena, paid $2.80 to place.

            Tap Dancing is a 4-year-old New Mexico-bred son of Pleasant Tap out of the A.P. Indy mare Indicate. The victory, the second in 11 starts, was worth $25,800 and increased his career earnings to $60,342.

            A total of 72 winning tickets collected a payoff of $33,557.80 from a Pick 6 pool of $3,461,874.

            In the day’s final race, Shot Gun Cliff keyed a payoff of $15,509.20 in the Super Hi-5, which required bettors to select the top five finishers in order. There were 70 winning tickets in the Super Hi-5 that began the day with a $251,856 carryover and wound up with $1,032,668 in the pool.

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