Melbourne Cup 2017: How to run an office sweep

Roar Rookie

5th November, 2017

3302 Reads

Anyone can contribute to The Roar and have their work featured alongside some of Australia’s most prominent sports journalists.

There's plenty of racing to be had this weekend. (AAP Image/David Moir)

Jack McDonald Crowley new author

Roar Rookie

5th November, 2017

3302 Reads

An office sweep is without a doubt one of Melbourne Cup Day’s most important features.

More 2017 Melbourne Cup
» Race report: Rekindling wins
» Who came last
» Complete finishing order
» Watch video highlights replay
» Re-live the race with our live blog
» Regal Monarch’s horror fall
» Winning trifecta and quinella
» Winning exact and first four

However, they can be a bit tricky to organise, so if you’re responsible for your workplace sweep, we’ve collated a list of all the best sweep templates out there.

The good old printable sweep is reliable and relatively easy to set up. There are a few free options in this department.

Racenet has a two page pdf featuring each rider’s colours on their individual tokens. They also have a percentage based payout calculator.

There is a single page pdf available from The Age. This version has smaller tokens you can cut out and assign from the bottom of the page.

If the printouts are a bit too much, and you’d rather organise your whole sweep online, there are plenty of options there too.

The Herald Sun has a free online tool for calculating payouts depending on how much each member of your sweep contributes.

There is a similar option available from Fox Sports. This one does away with the lucky dip, and randomly allocates a horse to each player.

Of course if you want to go old school and just write down all the horse names on scraps of paper, then you’ll need a proper list. Here’s the full field for this year’s Melbourne Cup:

No.	Horse	Trainer	Jockey	Weight	Barrier
1	Hartnell	James Cummings	Damian Lane	57.5kg	12
2	Almandin	Robert Hickmott	Frankie Dettori	56.5kg	14
3	Humidor	Darren Weir	Blake Shinn	56kg	13
4	Tiberian	Alain Couetil	OlivierPeslier	55.5kg	23
5	Marmelo	Hughie Morrison	Hugh Bowman	55kg	16
6	Red Cardinal	Andreas Wohler	Kerrin McEvoy	55kg	24
7	Johannes Vermeer	Aidan O’Brien	Ben Melham	54.5kg	3
8	Bondi Beach	Robert Hickmott	Michael Walker	54kg	1
9	Max Dynamite	William Mullins	Zac Purton	54kg	2
10	Ventura Storm	David & B Hayes & T Dabernig	Glen Boss	54kg	6
11	Who Shot Thebarman	Chris Waller	Tommy Berry	54kg	20
12	Wicklow Brave	William Mullins	Stephen Baster	54kg	8
13	Big Duke	Darren Weir	Brenton Avdulla	53.5kg	5
14	US Army Ranger	Joseph O’Brien	Jamie Spencer	53.5kg	22
15	Boom Time	David & B Hayes & T Dabernig	Cory Parish	53kg	9
16	Gallante	Robert Hickmott	Michael Dee	53kg	18
17	Libran	Chris Waller	Dwayne Dunn	53kg	7
18	Nakeeta	Iain Jardine	Glyn Schofield	53kg	19
19	Single Gaze	Nick Olive	Kathy O’Hara	53kg	11
20	Wall of Fire	Hugo Palmer	Craig Williams	53kg	15
21	Thomas Hobson	William Mullins	Joao Moreira	52kg	21
22	Rekindling	Joseph O’Brien	Corey Brown	51.5kg	4
23	Amelie’s Star	Darren Weir	Dean Yendall	51kg	10
24	Cismontane	Gai Waterhouse & Adrian Bott	Beau Mertens	50kg	17

*Who Shot Thebarman was scratched from the race on Sunday due to an elevated temperature, leaving only 23 runners in the race.

With this many options, your workplace is sure to have a great sweep. But if you’d rather have a genuine flutter on the Cup, have a look at the odds.

Join the conversation

Have you ever tried your skills in a Racing daily fantasy competition? Put your best picks to the test for one day and see if you can scoop the pot with Draftstars. Looking for great odds on racing and sport? PlayUp is your best bet. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.