Going
The state of the racing surface — soft, standard, fast — affecting times and which running styles are favoured.
The going is the official description of the racing surface condition. UK greyhound racing is on sand, but the moisture content and surface preparation affect how dogs run:
- Fast — drier, harder surface; favours early-pace dogs.
- Standard — neutral conditions; the long-term baseline.
- Slow / heavy — wetter, deeper sand; favours strong stayers, penalises early speed.
Why going matters: a dog that excels in fast conditions may underperform on slow going. Historical times need to be context-corrected by going before they're comparable race-to-race.
On TrapStats: going is one of the categorical features in the prediction model. We pull it from GBGB (UK) and GRI (Ireland) meeting headers. When it's missing for a given race, the model treats it as a separate "unknown" category rather than imputing — that way the prediction doesn't pretend to know more than it does.