Ultimately the evidence is measured by how fast the horses run compared to how fast the same horses have run in the past, which is reflected in the figures-- without having that to tie things to, even the information that the track is deeper and sandier would have no meaning. If you want to know about specific tracks in terms of depth etc, you can contact the track supers yourself, assuming they have been there long enough to know. Porcelli had been at at a conference of guys who do what he does (hosted I believe by the guy who does it at Philly Park), and looked back into the records as far back as the 80's for NYRA tracks at my request.

As for the distance figures-- we do studies to make sure the figures for sprints and routes line up at each track. As I pointed out in a post about a year ago here (you might try the search engine) Ragozin pretty obviously was not doing so, at least for SoCal in 03, but may have started to after I made an issue of it, because their sprint/route relationship there changed (we knew ours were right because of the studies I mentioned). In general, the difference has to do with their unwillingness to split one and two turn races, which often results in giving the sprints figures that are too good, and robbing the routes. Another poster here once suggested that the one turn routes at Belmont came up fast on Ragozin compared to routes at other tracks-- I wouldn't be surprised.



TGJB