By Andrew Young
French horse Fastorslow has been given the best chance of winning this year's Cheltenham Festival Gold Cup – according to analysis of racing data going back to 1990.
A supercomputer has pored over almost 35 years of statistics from the world-famous horse racing event, to determine the most common characteristics of a winning horse. It emerged that those with the best chance of success are horses from Ireland, that are eight years of age, with a French Sire and Dam, and a British trainer.
And eight-year-old Fastorslow, who comes from French parentage, and currently has a prime betting position of two, most closely matches the winning algorithm – and has been given a 95% chance of winning the racing festival this week. Meanwhile, a separate analysis of Cheltenham Festival winners over the last 15 years found that the most likely jockeys to win – are ones that have stars on their jerseys.
In the last decade and a half, as many as 48% of the winning jockeys have sported a starry pattern on their silks, with white stars the best colour to back. In fact, three of the last five Gold Cup winners have all worn stars as they raced to victory at the festival's main race.
The data was compiled by bet365, with the help of its supercomputer – and a spokesman said: “There may be favourites heading to Cheltenham, but no horse, jockey, or trainer is guaranteed success at the Festival, with the elite of world horse racing all competing across the four days. Each year stars will emerge from Prestbury Park, and it’s amazing to see that it is the jockeys wearing stars that have dominated historically.”
The betting giant’s supercomputer pored through data of every winner and contender of the Gold Cup since 1990, to calculate 2024’s likely champion. The characteristics of all champion horses at the Cheltenham Gold Cup were extracted, to determine the features of a “typical winning horse” at the race.
With comprehensive numerical information on the characteristics of a winning horse ready, the next step was to find which horses from 2024 come closest to a typical winner. They were looking for a “similarity score” of all horses entered, with the horse scoring closest to one, given the highest probability of success. The supercomputer’s simulations favour Fastorslow, who has a similarity score of 0.9854.
The second favourite is Irish horse Shishkin, closely followed by Gerri Colombe, from France. But defending champion, Galopin des Champs, is down as the tenth favourite, as far as the algorithmic predictions are concerned.
Bet365’s spokesman added: “The beauty of the Gold Cup – and horse racing in general – is that there is always room for an upset. If it were possible to predict the outcome of a race with total accuracy, then the sport would have been over and done with years ago. So, while you can give yourself a sporting chance of success by looking at what’s come before, the future is totally unwritten.”
THE SUPERCOMPUTER’S PREDICTION FOR THE GOLD CUP WINNER:
- Age: 8 years old
- Betting position: 2
- Initial odds: 8.00
- Ran over 26 furlongs: FALSE
- Country of Origin (Trainer): Great Britain
- Country of Origin (Horse): Ireland
- Country of Origin (Sire): France
- Country of Origin (Dam): France
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