The race that stops a nation has been run for another year with lightly-raced stayer Shocking taking home the tri-handled golden cup.
The Mark Kavanagh-trained Shocking won the 3,200 metre Melbourne Cup at Flemington today despite punters favouring the likes of Cup king Bart Cumming's three entrants and popular rookie, Alcopop in in the big race, finishing ahead of international stayers Crime Scene and Mourilyan.
Cumming's victorious mount from last year's Melbourne Cup, Viewed was hot favourite all week after the horse secured victory in the Caulfield Cup.
Interestingly, Macquarie Group's equities research division analysed data and transformed racing statistics into traditional quant signals to come up with its top picks for the race.
Amazingly, Shocking was named at the very top position by Macquarie.
Quant signals such as sentiment, momentum, value and winning rate along with factors such as age, barrier and average prize money per race were all considered in the modelling.
However, a horse's weight handicap showed no correlation and was left out of the model.
Macquarie also included Alcopop and Changingoftheguard in the top three positions, with actual place-getters, Crime Scene and Mourilyan rated at nine and 10 respectively.
Despite this Nostradamus-like forecasting from the investment bank, it seems the only safe bet for Melbourne Cup Day was backing an official 25 basis point rise in official interest rates to 3.5 per cent from the Reserve Bank of Australia, which was announced prior to the horse's jumping from the gate.
