Race card Going?

Does Betfair API supply the race card 'going'?
Could I submit an additional variable for silk_ or market_going as a string, if they do.

Sorry, what's "Going" in this context?

Going is a measure of the condition of the course.  Heavy being mud, soft, firm etc etc.

Obviously it affects how the horses run.

Its quoted on the race card for each race but I am not sure if it is available from the API.

Alfaman

Hi I had the same query as this information is very important when associated with a horses position i.e. if a horse wins say on soft going and always loses on say firm going you would not want to simply bet on a horse because it won last time out, if the current going is firm the horse is very likely to lose, in that case perhaps a good lay.  I asked Betfair as I thought that if it was available it would have been included in silks.  They replied that the going for the current race is shown on their race card screen (but I am not sure if this can be made availabe via the API perhaps Oxa can investigate).  With regard going associated with placings they said this is available by clicking on the free timeform icon but they are looking at improving the information they provide.  Again perhaps Oxa can investigate if a timeform download can be incorporated in the meantime to MFPro.  This information would be extremely powerful for systems.

I've taken a look at BetFair's web site. They are providing a PDF file made by Timeform for every race - is that where you saw the going conditions?

Unfortunately we have our hands tied: we may (that means are allowed to) only use the silks data that is available through the API, namely:

Age and Weight
bred
Colour type
Dam Bred
Dam Name
DamSire Bred
DamSire Name
DamSire Year Born
Days since last run
ForecastPrice Price Denominator
ForecastPrice Price Numerator
Form
Jockey claim
Jockey Name
Official Rating
Owner name
Saddle cloth
Sex type
Silks description
Sire Bred
Sire Name
Sire Year Born
Stall draw
Trainer name
Wearing text


I promise that as soon as any new bit of information appears in the API, I will add it to MF Pro.

Hi Oxa yes it was the PDF file for form with goings from Timeform.  Hopefully Betfair will be able to provide this information in due course, in winter months it is particularily important for systems and would certainly make using MFPro very powerful as users could start creating true information based systems.

Trigger,

Until Betfair do this I can think of two workarounds.  I don't know whether you link to Excel (I don't) but if you do you could do a weblink in excel to sportinglife's going page, extract the going for each course for that day and translate that into, say, 1 for heavy, 2 for soft, ect etc and then use that as a variable in a trigger to adjust your strategy appropriately for the conditions.

Otherwise you could manually enter a variable once in the morning for each course and let it work from there.  There are only about five each day and it wont be perfect but better than nothing ?

Alfaman

Thanks Alfaman
This could be a useful start until Betfair make this information available.
Trigger

Was going to start a new topic but did a quick search and though I,d bring this thread back from the dead!

I realise that the api doesn't include this info, but I was wondering that if betfair ever consult you as an important client for their api service, if you could ask them to consider adding this information to it.  This info could expand the available strategies we could develop exponentially, as the going is vital information in how certain horses perform in each race meeting.