The December 18, 2010 issue of the Thoroughbred Times (page 12) has an article and diagram of the new track surface; they allow up to 10\" of sand loam surface in the diagram pictured. The focus of that article was that the track wouldn\'t be that fast; obviously, they\'ve not opted for that -- I don\'t know whether or not that has to do with the record rainfall they\'ve received and how that might have changed the surface. I\'m fine with anything as long as it is consistent and doesn\'t kill the horses, but except for a few days, the rail has been a golden path, and the track does seem to return a lot of energy to the runners making it a pro-speed bias; they\'ve certainly brought the brilliant performances always known to California racing back to the forefront.I think it is a little too early to say (as some are) that the track is that insanely quick - if you look at California times from many years ago (I was doing that today), they\'ve always run very fast times on their dirt surface. It\'s not that unusual, really. Now you\'ve got the added phenomenon of synthetic runners exploding on dirt; I think that is more of a factor than anything else. Most horses hate synthetic and when they feel their feet on a dirt track, you\'re going to see much faster numbers. The interesting thing will be what happens on the second and subsequent efforts. If I were making numbers (and, of course, I leave that to you, Jerry) I would think that a lot of these runners have indeed exploded in their first dirt races, and I would think the numbers MUCH faster, not simply the track surface. Just my opinion.
