SoCalReader

I thought it was a great puzzle. My hangups were "Piths"/"itch" (my mind kept wanting 'urge' for 2D). AsTo for InRe in 5A. Great for Bravo in 12D. And Tased for Lased in 38A. Despite those hangups slowing me down I still came in at 25 minutes -> just under half my Friday average. One very nice touch in the puzzle was the parallel words - both visually and in meaning - in 30D and 21D. To get two answers related to horse racing in those two lengthy downs, with neither of the clues having having anything to do with horse racing, was just a really nice touch that I appreciated. Thank you for the very enjoyable puzzle Abigail Martin (and of course to Will Shortz for his consistently fantastic job as editor).

Early on I got held up with 48 across because with only the 'R' from TinSoldiers down I came up with a perfectly logical fitting "fingeRtips"....when a Muslim prays, do their fingertips not point towards Mecca?     I was married to that answer.  After a looong while,  I switched it to "prayeRrugs", after which I got plenty of downs but then got hung up again.   Finally, I switched it to "prayeRmats".     HOLY SCHMOLY!  (pun intended).   50D gave me a similar problem, where I felt certain that "loamY" was right;  took eons to switch it to "peatY".

WRT the theme clues, although the answers were pretty straightforward the wordplay naturally tricked my mind into going down the wrong path for many of them before I was able to solve. Asked the wife for help to solve MEETER .... that's just something that seems weird to me, but she solved it immediately as soon as I gave here M_E___R. She also solved the answer to repentant as contrite; apparently I never knew what contrite meant (I rarely heard it used and thought it had to do with a person being trite). Derelict/disused? I think of disuse causing something to be derelict rather than a synonym for it. But given my lack of "contrite" knowledge, maybe it's just I who is confused.

Tough but fair, and fun. I found this easier than this Fridays puzzle (thankfully)..... maybe the twe should have been switched. Loved the spanners!

OMG ... I can't believe I have been pronouncing "Nee" (40A) wrong my entire life. I always pronounced "nee" as "knee", and never once have I been corrected. I wonder if people thought they were being nice by not correcting me, or whether they all also thought that "knee" was the correct pronunciation. Well, now I know. :)