Sponsored: With Cheltenham Festival beginning today, Broadcast Sport spoke to Ellipse about its best-in-class horse racing analytics solution, RaceiQ, and its partnership with Racecourse Media Group

RaceiQ Ellipse

Despite its close relationship with gambling and the data needed to power that, horse racing presentations have long been without the analysis and graphics that have become the norm across more and more of sport broadcasting over the last decade. 

That is, until Ellipse in partnership with RMG entered the space just over 12 months ago.

Over the past year, the company, which also works with broadcasters and rights holders in tennis, cricket, rugby, football, and more, has created a whole new suite of metrics and resulting analysis for the sport, which is across Racing TV and ITV’s broadcasts.

This isn’t the first time that Ellipse has looked at a sport with the aim of evolving its data approach – its work in cricket, under the brand name CricViz, has seen metrics such as WinViz and more become well-known around the globe. 

Angus McNae, a presenter and analyst for Racing TV, explained the huge difference this has made to the sport’s outlook: “It’s a massive change and it’s incredibly important for the sport going forward. For years racing has been mired in informed opinion, nothing wrong with that, that’s what forms punditry for most sports. 

“As an analogy, if I was to race 100m against Usain Bolt, he would clearly beat me. Then the analysts in racing would say, ‘Usain Bolt’s not very good because all he’s done is beaten that guy from Racing TV”. That’s how racing was analysed. However, if you looked at the time that Usain Bolt ran when he beat me, 9.6 seconds, it’s much more important that he posted a world-class time. That’s what RaceiQ has done for racing, it has brought data in to dispel myths and legends.”

Page Fuller, lead editorial analyst for Ellipse and RaceiQ, revealed the systems that have been put in place to make this happen, “Working across many sports - we work very closely with presenters. We have the product team, who build metrics and the platform to put those metrics into, and pride ourselves on the relationship we build with broadcasters. 

“I send out weekly emails summarising the data into something more palatable for people who might be less familiar with those data points, and I’ll support the presenters at the major events, getting it embedded into the day-to-day language of the sport. It’s all very well to just put numbers in front of people but it’s not going to soak in unless someone helps them make it relevant.”

This work hasn’t just gone into the broadcasts, with social media content also being boosted by the use of more data and graphics. Fuller added, “It’s amazing how much people engage with facts. All people want to do is see a black-and-white answer. For many people involved in racing, it’s a punting angle - will my horse win next time if he has a cleaner round of jumping? Now we can tell people yes, he probably could have won the race. A lot of the time, that then translates to people who might not be doing it from a punting angle, making them more excited to go and see that horse run again.”

Press coverage can also be enhanced, Fuller noted, “We’ve had Brough Scott, who writes for The Times, keen to try and highlight to a more general audience what [new data point] Sectional Time means, and what is that actual speed? For example, a ten-second furlong, that’s nearly 45 miles an hour, which is quite fast for an animal and a person to go. So, we’ve got  interest from press as well as broadcasters companies saying they want to use the data.” 

This approach is helping horse racing to stay relevant in an increasingly crowded sports market, and assisting Ellipse with continuing to win contracts globally with the likes of BBC, Fox and Sky Sports and more. 

They will be aiming for more of the same in 2025, as both look to build on the successful partnership and explore opportunities with international broadcasters and horse racing organisations.

For broadcasters looking to learn more about RaceiQ, a B2B website has also been launched – www.raceiq.com. The site houses in-depth details about RaceiQ metrics, insights, testimonials and the list of products and services on offer.