The race that stops a nation is run at Flemington tomorrow, Tuesday 3 November. Picking a winner from a field of 24 can feel like guesswork, but the history books say otherwise. Recent Melbourne Cup winners have had a lot in common, and some of those patterns are hard to ignore. We looked at every winner from 2013 to 2025: their age, sex, breeding, barrier, starting price, where they were trained and how they were prepared. Seven trends stand out. Most winners were aged 4 to