Read this interesting quote from jockey Aaron Gryder a few days ago:

"With the heat we got today, it had a chance to change and it didn't. It's 15 degrees hotter now (than this morning) and horses are not going into it any deeper."

Works over the new Santa Anita surface have been noticeably quick, btw. I know that when Hollywood debuted it's new cushion track surface, it was slow for the first day or two, but from that point on the times were very similar to the old Hollywood dirt surface (reportedly due to watering). I expect the new Santa Anita surface will play very similar to Hollywood's.....we shall see.

Santa Anita is having an open house on Sunday where fans will be allowed to go walk on and feel the new surface. I'm thinking of going to check it out for the heck of it.