Those in the know say the Melbourne Cup is anyone's game.
Not even the horses know who is going to win.
But the data science team at full service media agency This is Flow has analysed historical data and media sentiment as a predictor of a future result.
The quantitative model allocates weighting and ratings across multiple factors, including a horse’s current form, make up (age, colour, country of birth), prize money, odds and jockey performance.
This, the theory goes, allows Flow’s data minds to see how similar a current running horse is compared with all historical winners of the Melbourne Cup.
The agency has included media presence into the model by looking at how many times each horse is being talked about, and the public’s sentiment towards it through online mentions.
Michael Elith, Flow’s data lead: “It is always great to see how data can play a role in our daily decision making, and how a number of factors can be brought together in an automated and simplified way to help answer complex questions.”
The results have confirmed the favourite, Deauville Legend, is a favourite for a reason – running well ahead of the pack.
However, it is important to note that Melbourne Cup favourites have only won 21% of the time since the race inception in 1861.
The model shows outsider Interpretation coming in second, ahead of Without a Fight in third.
Jimmy Hyett, Founder & CEO, This is Flow: “While we are much better at buying media than picking horses it is all done in fun and hopefully gives everyone something to chat about come the big race."
Within each category Flow has highlighted seven core fields and ranked them against the full history of previous winners, then added all the current horses, their form and social impact to paint the full picture and deliver a rating on each horse.
The core fields:
- Horse Characteristics – Age, Sex, Weight, Barrier, Saddlecloth Number, Foaled, Colour, and if they are a newcomer.
- Winning Ratio – Win percentage, Place percentage and Experience
- Prize Money – Average prize money
- Form – Previous Form and Average Time (their longest distance race they have run, then recalculated to match the Melbourne Cup distance of 3200m)
- Jockey Performance – Jockey Barrier, Jockey Distance, Field Size and Jockey Weight
- Media Impact – Mentions, Interactions, Reach, Shares and Likes across a variety of sites including Social Platforms, Google trends etc
- Market Sentiment – Odds (as of Monday 12pm)
Time Predictor: Estimated times for the horses based on the average speed of the previous 25 Melbourne Cup winners and reweighted for each horse based on their final rating.
(Note: All data provided is done so in the name of fun and cannot be relied upon for picking a winner. If you’re going to take a punt, don’t bet more than you can afford to lose.)
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