1-- Joe King would have no way of knowing whether tracks are slower unless he was a) using one of the energy return machines George Pratt invented, or b) using figures that are accurate, which is to say have not relied on pars for the last 20 years, which is to say TG (and not Ragozin, who cut loose from pars relatively recently). His account of the cushion depth does not square with what Porcelli told me (and frankly with what King told me, which was that he didn't disagree with anything Porcelli had told me, and didn't have much to add). Porcelli started the accurate record keeping at NYRA, and was the one who put me in contact with King. Without any doubt, the cushion depth at the NYRA tracks has increased over the period of time Porcelli has been involved, specifically when Terry Meyocks came in.

2-- As I pointed out a year or two ago when the issue of grass race times was last brought up, there have been a lot of VERY fast grass races run in the last couple of years (I listed a dozen or so at the time from the previous 6 months). Additionally, as I make clear early in the article, the prevailing theory today is that soft=safe, and the same thing presumably applies to grass, to the degree it can be controlled by not mowing, watering, etc. Trainers start screaming when racetracks get hard, and Darrel Vienna (for one) does not like to run horses over the Hollywood grass course when it gets too hard.

3-- "Fig acceleration" is I believe a function of such things as drugs. On the question of track speed today, it's all over the map, especially since the advent of poly etc.