As far as dirt tracks labeled fast go - I saw a statistical study that would suggest the speed of the track and the safety of the surface are two entirely different things.
In fact, when a dirt track labeled fast was producing final times much slower than par, horses who ran over it were less likely to make their next start within 90 days.
When it was much faster than par, horses who ran over it were slightly more likely to make their next start within the next 90 days - than those who ran over the track when it was producing times closer to par for the class levels.
I want to say this was limited to the five major tracks in California. It didn't have to do with track speed and time between starts only -but it didn't get into what kind of injuries and it was more of a study comparing what effects varrying tracks speeds have on a wide variety of things - such as running styles, path and post biases, time between starts, etc etc.
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