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Bruno Dejulio published and article today with a couple anecdotes of the Santa Anita dirt in the 90's. He talked about how the sun would shine only on the backstretch and not on the main stretch making the two sides of track almost completely different.
He mentioned an example in the mid 90's where the 4th race was a turf race, meaning there was an hour between dirt races (3rd and 5th races). The weather conditions apparently made the track very brittle and fast. The 5th race, 3 YO 25K claimers went 6f in 1:09:00- which is pretty fast, especially at that level. By the time races returned to the dirt again in the 7th race, the track had been watered and slowed down.
Equibase may not have perfect DTV figures, but they're likely doing an OK job. The fact that a track can change that much from hour to hour is ridiculous. It has to be extremely difficult to get an accurate track influence from day to day.
The best way to combat this IMO, is to beware of the flaws in the system. You can trust the adjustment and the speed figures, but look at the holistic picture.
I really like Mark's insight 2 posts back talking about taking a holistic look at a horse. If the last effort is a lifetime high speed #, make sure it's legitimate.
Where I get lost, is how does one determine whether the last effort was truly legitimate? I imagine quite a few short priced horses, with lifetime best speed #'s in the last race, lose everyday.
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