Official Going vs Actual Going
The official going is declared before racing and represents the clerk of the course's assessment. However, ground conditions can change during the day. Rain, sunshine, or simply heavy use of the track can alter the going between the first and last race.
Actual Going is the post-race assessment of the ground conditions for each individual race. It reflects what the horses actually raced on, not what was forecast. This distinction matters most on days where conditions change.
How to Enable Actual Going
Navigate to Account, then Preferences, then Platinum Features. Toggle on "Use Actual Going in Form Expert". A gold badge reading "Using Actual Going" will appear in the Form Expert control bar confirming the setting is active.
How It Affects Form Expert
With Actual Going enabled, the Form Expert Going column uses post-race going data instead of the official going. This means historical performance is categorised by the conditions that actually existed during each race.
Where actual going data is not available for a particular race, the system falls back to official going automatically. You always see the best available data.
Why It Matters
Consider a horse whose record on Good to Soft looks mediocre. Several of those runs may have taken place on ground that was officially Good to Soft but actually closer to Soft by race time. With Actual Going enabled, those runs are reclassified, giving a more accurate picture of the horse's going preference.
On days where going changes are announced mid-meeting, Actual Going captures the shift that official going misses.
Profile Breakdowns
Platinum users also see an "Actual Going" breakdown alongside the standard Going breakdown on all profile pages. This provides a side-by-side comparison of how participants perform under official versus actual conditions.
Availability
Actual Going is a Platinum-exclusive feature. If your Platinum subscription expires, the preference is automatically reset to official going.
