Hi,
The official rating shown in historic_runners (ie results) is always the rating that the horse in question ran off in that race. It therefore corresponds to the official_rating in the daily_runners table which is available on the day of the race, before the race begins. The official rating is only revised by the official handicapper on a weekly basis, and Smartform results are available the next day. In short there is no need to look up the previous race in order to find out what the official rating was for a horse in the results, but if you want to find out how the handicapper has judged the performance you will have to look up its next run.
However, the historic_runners private handicap rating (as well as the speed rating), is automatically calculated based on how the horse has run, and corresponds to the result acheived. Some private handicap ratings and speed ratings also have an element of qualitative form involved, where the relative performance is judged subjectively and with the benefit of more than one day's evaluation (or re-evaluated and subsequently changed), but this is not the case with the speed ratings and private handicap ratings in the database which are always a next day view (of course you can make your own historic adjustments over whatever period you choose and add these in a separate view or table).
