The Melbourne Cup may well be the race that stops the nation, but upcoming inflation figures could stop the Reserve Bank in its tracks.
The central bank is odds on to hike interest rates for a fifth time in 2026 on Melbourne Cup day.
But a softer-than-expected inflation print for the September quarter, set to be released on Wednesday, could rein in the RBA.
Markets piled on their bets for a November hike after the RBA's deputy governor, Andrew Hauser, earlier in October said the board would have to make some "hard choices" to get inflation down amid slowing growth and a weakening jobs market.
Notably, Mr Hauser said that inflation expectations were starting to drift higher - a "nightmare" scenario for the central bank which would only make it harder to get inflation under control down the line.
Higher oil prices from the Middle East conflict were no longer being seen as a temporary spike.
While fuel costs won't have a direct impact on trimmed mean inflation - the RBA's preferred measure of underlying price growth - the risk is that it increasingly causes businesses to pass on higher input costs onto consumers and inflation becomes entrenched.
Economists at Commonwealth Bank expect the quarterly trimmed mean to have increased by one per cent, up from 0.8 per cent in the June quarter.
While that would be higher than the RBA's August forecast of a 0.8 per cent rise, it is unlikely to surprise the board given the strength of the two monthly prints since then, CBA senior economist Trent Saunders said.
But the board will be particularly sensitive to any signs that inflation is becoming more broad-based or persistent, he said in a client note.
"This includes signs of continued domestic capacity pressures in market services or stronger and faster pass-through from the global energy shock," said Mr Saunders, who has predicted a hold in November.
Market services inflation refers to price growth in consumer-facing items such as restaurant meals, gym memberships, hairdressing and insurance.
Because they are less directly influenced by commodity prices than other parts of the inflation basket, such as fuel and electricity, and are more influenced by labour costs, they are a clearer sign of home-grown capacity pressures, which are harder for the RBA to get on top of.
Market services inflation will also give the RBA a sense of how quickly higher fuel prices are being passed through across the entire economy.
CBA expects market services inflation to accelerate from one per cent in the June quarter to 1.2 per cent.
Regardless of the outcome, it shouldn't take too long to hear from the RBA about their take on the figures.
Mr Hauser, governor Michele Bullock, chief economist Sarah Hunter and assistant governors Brad Jones and Christopher Kent are slated to appear before a Senate estimates hearing at the same time as the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the data at 11.30am.