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Leakage-aware pre-event machine learning evaluation for horse-race prediction under temporal validation.
Frontiers in artificial intelligence    September 24, 2026   Volume 9 1896192 doi: 10.3389/frai.2026.1896192
Sugiura S.Horse-racing prediction was used as a case study to develop and evaluate a leakage-aware machine-learning framework based on information available after race-entry finalization and before outcomes were known. Japanese Racing Association flat-race data obtained through JRA-VAN Data Lab. and exported using TARGET frontier JV were split temporally: 2015-2022 for training, 2023-2024 for validation, and January 5, 2025 to May 10, 2026 for independent testing. The test set contained 63,910 horse-level observations from 4,556 races. Confidence intervals were estimated using 10,000 race-level bootstra...