Announcing Award Recipients of the 2023 CANSSI Ontario French Trot Horse Racing Forecasting Competition

The Forecasting Competition, launched in 2023, included three monetary prizes and was open to postdoctoral fellows and undergraduate and graduate students at CANSSI Ontario partner universities.  

After receiving 190 team registrations and evaluating 18 models to identify the best approaches for predicting French Trot horse racing outcomes, CANSSI Ontario is thrilled to announce the selection of two winning teams, both from the University of Toronto. Collectively, these innovators were awarded $10,000 in prizes for using machine learning and statistical analysis of historical data to develop models that delivered the most accurate forecasts over a three-month validation dataset. Meet the winners: 

Performance Award ($5,000) and Innovation Award ($3,500)

Team Zaccour: University of Toronto graduate students Cynthia Yip and Juliette Zaccour (Faculty of Information).  

Undergraduate Award ($1,500)

Team Yi: University of Toronto students Sean Yi (Department of Computer Science and Department of Statistical Sciences (DoSS), Serena Ban and Marvin Guo (DoSS). 

The Zaccour and Yi Teams are profiled along with information about their forecasting process in these posts about them: Zaccour | Yi.

About the Competition

The French Trot Horse Racing Forecasting Competition, launched by CANSSI Ontario in 2023, invited undergraduates, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows across Ontario to showcase their skills in statistics and machine learning. Participants were tasked to build the best models for accurately predicting French Trot Horse Racing. The competition evaluated submissions across three categories:

• Performance: Achieving the most accurate winner forecasts on a three-month validation dataset ($5,000).
• Innovation: Developing novel features, exploring new methodologies, or presenting compelling narratives ($3,500).
• Best Entry by Undergraduates: Undergraduates were judged in either category—performance or innovation—the award was reserved for the best undergraduate entry ($1,500).

For more information about the 2023 CANSSI Ontario Forecasting Competition, visit the Competition webpage.

About the University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is one of the world’s leading institutions in research and education, renowned for its innovation and excellence in a wide range of fields, including statistical sciences and computer science.

About CANSSI Ontario

The Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI) Ontario fosters collaboration in the statistical sciences across Canada, supporting research and professional development in the field.