The Clerk Of The Course & The Going

This image is taken from the www.turftrax.co.uk Website. The makers of the GoingStick

I’ve always found it interesting that individual horses like different types of ground.  Some like to hear their hooves rattling off the surface and others love a good run in the mud.  The physical attributes of the horse matter, but so does the horse’s actual preference. An example of this might be a horse that is built for good ground but loves the wet.  His speed will not help him if he has no stamina to back up his enthusiasm.

The going refers to the level of the moisture content contained within the racing surface at a particular racecourse. Horses are usually suited to a certain type of ground, but some can be very versatile. Connections, particularly trainers, find the going description to be vital because of the individual requirements of each horse. 

In betting terms if the horse you are choosing has previously ran well on a type of going then he should act on it again.  It is unwise to think that if a trainer has left a horse in the race it must be fine with the going. The trainer might not know if the horse will get the going and could be taking a chance based on the horses physical attributes, family, runs on the gallops and any other information available! There are in fact many reasons a trainer could keep a horse in a race ranging from demanding connections to a desire to give a horse a run to get him race sharp.

It pays to look at the weather forecast for the race that you wish to bet on.  Over my years working for Ladbrokes and BetFred I found people to be constantly and consistently surprised that the weather in Britain is changeable. It’s no good spending time choosing a horse and then being surprised the good ground you planned for has turned to soft because there was lots of rain overnight. I look up the post code of the racecourse on Google and type it into BBC weather. This allows me to see how conditions will change overnight and throughout the day. By doing this I can see if soft ground is likely to become heavy during the course of a meeting, or if good to soft will turn to good in the midday sun. As weather reports have become more accurate they have become an ever more important tool in the punters armoury.

To properly understand going conditions it is worth taking a moment to consider the job of the clerk of the course.

The clerk of the course is an incredibly important part of the racecourse team who is in charge of looking after the racing surface and keeping it in optimal condition. It is the job of the clerk of the course to evaluate the moisture content within the racing surface to determine the type of going the horses will be racing on. The going advertised by a racecourse is based on this judgement and the clerk will advise the media and trainers. If a trainer wants to know how the ground is developing before a race they can contact the clerk for up to date advice and to discuss the evolution of the surface. 

In Britain the going on turf courses is normally presented in two forms; a written assessment and a numerical value.  The written assessment is based upon what the clerk of the course feels the going actually is and the numerical value is the GoingStick reading.

The GoingStick is a surprisingly high tech tool. It looks like a shovel with a cross section at the bottom instead of the blade.  There is a rectangular box attached to the shaft just underneath the handle which records information.  It is pushed into ground which gives the first reading, then it is tilted to a 45 degree angle to give the second reading.  This is repeated many times around the racecourse at marked datum points.  The combination of the readings gives an indication of the amount the horses hooves will sink in to the ground and the traction they will have as they run.

The GoingStick reading can vary in what it represents from course to course due to soil types and the person using it. It does however give a very good guide.

By everybody using the same method this helps standardize ground types between different racecourses so one clerk of the course’s good to firm is not another clerk of the course’s firm. 

Before the GoingStick was introduced it was left to the clerk of the course to come up with a going description based on experience, poking the floor with a stick and stamping and kicking the turf.

Jockeys and trainers don’t usually have GoingSticks so they dig their feet or sticks into the ground to form a judgement. They will happily argue this judgement with the clerk who has intensely studied the issue and has all the facts at hand.

When the weather has been too cold or wet there may need to be an inspection before racing is allowed to take place. Although a previous ground analysis has been offered the responsible thing to do in these conditions is make sure safe racing can occur. They can occur up to 5 days before a meeting to give people enough warning to be on guard or to change plans. They can also happen on the evening before a meeting or even all the way up to the start of racing. Predictions always border on the hopeful to the point that it can be a shock when a meeting gets cancelled due to the nature of the positive vibes being radiated by the clerk of the course whose job it is, after all, to ensure racing takes place if humanly possible.