Porcelli sounds a lot different than the "hard boot" track super I talked to & posted about a number of months ago. I am guessing there are more like him than like Porcelli, but I do think that for the most part their primary concern on a day to day(as opposed to big stakes days) basis is safety rather than the times of the races. I have read & heard that the best is the guy at FG, where the times are often slow, but the horses who spend the winter there almost invariably run better at Kee than the horses coming from GP,OP & TP. Not sure if that is goig to be as true now that Palm Meadows is fully operational. A high percentage of the horses which trained there last yr won at GP, & I've heard trainers say that it is very safe & produces runners who are dead fit. The one track that is hard to figure is Hol, where the number of horses which break down during training has always been off the charts. Why something has never been done about the situation is a mystery to me. Not to beat a dead horse, but as important as it is to know what happened in the past, what would be great to have is a more exact understanding of the condition of the track prior to the time the race is run.