On the fourth and final day of Tix Week, I'm going to bring it all together. As well as looking at yesterday's play - with a few observations on that - I answer some of your questions; share which framework I use in different scenarios; and offer a few hints and tips to optimise your placepot/jackpot play.
First, though, if you've not watched the previous video posts, you'll find the Plus Simple one hereand the ABCX one here and the Plus Pro one here.
[Tip: you can make the video clearer by clicking the cog icon bottom right and choosing 'quality' 1080p, and you can make me speak faster with the 'playback speed' option in the same place]
I hope you've enjoyed this short series of videos and maybe learned something new about placepots, jackpots and Tix. Do have a play with the software we've built: it's been designed to improve the results of all levels of player, and it's quite unlike anything else available in the UK for playing placepot and jackpot pools.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/TixPlus.png320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2026-02-27 10:02:462026-02-27 10:02:46Tix Week: Wrapping Up
Day 3 of Tix Week and, after a quick break yesterday, today we're looking at the new Plus Pro framework. It's the most user configurable way to play multi-race pool bets but does take a little more knowing than Plus Simple and ABCX. A little, but not a lot.
Before that, then, if you've not watched the previous video posts, you'll find the Plus Simple on hereand the ABCX one here.
OK, let's talk about Plus Pro. In a nutshell, if Plus Simple is an automatic car, Pro is a manual. It gives you more control, a bit more speed through the gears, but takes a little more knowing in the first instance.
Today's video - where I try to get through an inscrutable sextet at Clonmel, reveals all.
[Tip: you can make the video clearer by clicking the cog icon bottom right and choosing 'quality' 1080p, and you can make me speed faster with the 'playback speed' option in the same place]
Tomorrow, Friday, I'll attempt to draw all the strands together by sharing which framework suits which approach, as well as a bunch of better placepotting hints and tips.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to cover them for you.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/TixPlus.png320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2026-02-26 11:35:382026-02-26 11:35:38Tix Week: Plus Pro
It's day 2 of Tix Week, woohoo! Today we're looking at the ABCX framework, one of the most common approaches for multi-race tote pool players. Before that, though, if you've not yet taken a look at yesterday's video post, you'll find that here. It covers the most simple way to play Tix (choose budget, choose horses, place smart bet) and if you're new to this sort of thing, it's a great place to start. To today...
What you need to know about ABCX
ABCX is a way to build multi-race tickets by ranking your picks A, B or C based on confidence, then structuring your bets so your strongest selections get the most coverage and your weaker ones get less, helping balance cost and potential return. Using Tix, the software does all the structure bits, so you just need to pick your horses and confidence levels.
This video explains everything, as I try to pick out a winning placepot at Catterick. [Tip: you can make the video clearer by clicking the cog icon bottom right and choosing 'quality' 1080p, and you can make me speed faster with the 'playback speed' option in the same place]
I'll be back on Thursday with a look at the Tix Plus 'Pro' variant, and then on Friday I'll share some general advice on picking between the frameworks as well as some 'pro tips' for playing placepot/jackpot bets.
In the meantime, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments and I'll be happy to cover them for you.
This week on geegeez, I'll be highlighting the different playing modes on Tix, our tote multi-race staking software. By the end of the week, you'll know about Simple, ABCX, and Pro - and when to use each scenario.
Very little, in truth. You choose your maximum budget, minimum stake per line, and the horses you want included; the software does the rest.
Watch this video, where I walk you through a placepot play using Tix SIMPLE. I've had a crack at Plumpton's main meeting £50,000 guaranteed pool and, as well as mentioning a couple of things to look out for when playing placepots, I also discuss the mechanics of Tix SIMPLE. It bears repeating, though, that you don't need to know how it works particularly; you just need to know that it's a better way to stake the placepot you already play.
Here's the video. [Tip: you can make the video clearer by clicking the cog icon bottom right and choosing 'quality' 1080p, and you can make me speed faster with the 'playback speed' option in the same place]
Back tomorrow with Part 2, where we'll laser in on the ABCX framework.
But, for now, why not have a crack at TIX yourself this afternoon? Go here to check it out.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/TixPlus.png320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2026-02-23 11:27:002026-02-24 11:01:45Tix Week: Plus Simple
If you play the placepot (or jackpot, quadpot or any other multi-race pool bet), you'll know the joys and frustrations of the bet. On the upside is the chance to cop a very tidy sum for a modest investment; flip the coin and you'll get back less than you laid out or, quite often, miss by one leg (usually, though infuriatingly not always, the trickiest one).
How we used to play the placepot
For me, aside from those Kiplingesque "twin impostors" joy and frustration, bets like the placepot - and especially the jackpot - are a fantastic puzzle. The challenge is always to 'win twice': first, we have to correctly identify the winner/a placed horse in each leg; and second, because of the pooled nature of the wager, we have to occasionally go where the masses shun. We have to find a race (or two) where the winner and/or the horses in the frame are less obvious and, therefore, less endowed by tickets in the pool.
This, clearly, is tricky in the extreme with a single line running through six races. As we include more selections race to race so the multiplication gets more daunting and the dilution of our stakes makes for a less rewarding potential return... unless we hit that glorious home run whose increasingly distant and rose-tinted memory keeps us coming back for more in spite of the evidence from the interim.
The thing is, when we hit that wonder score with a caveman* ticket, we got lucky. Massively lucky. And, let's be clear, day to day we always need luck during the sextet of races. But I know how unsophisticated I was when I bagged my biggie...
I'd played a two horses per race combination: 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64 bets, at 10p per line. It was Ripon and a friend of mine, Gavin Priestley (with whom you may be familiar from his excellent Festival Trends work) and his brother Gary, also a pal, had three betting shops in the Torbay area. They offered early odds based on a tissue (set of prices) they paid for.
Anyway, the opening race this day at Ripon was a maiden and there was a 'springer' in the market on their tissue, but generally offered at long odds elsewhere. As it turned out, he returned much shorter - probably close to single figures though I don't exactly recall. He finished second, with unfindable horses immediately in front and behind, and the placepot pool was decimated by first leg casualties. Actually, more than decimated: there was only about 2% of the pool left, according to teletext.
The rest of the card went far closer to expectation but the dividend still returned £6876.30 to a £1 stake. I had managed to hit four of my 10p lines (one each in four legs, two apiece in the remaining pair), so copped for 40p of the payout, or £2,750.52. I was a student on summer holidays at the time, and you can imagine the disco we had that night!
*caveman ticket: a bet where no thought has gone into the staking, and all selections carry the same chunk of your wedge regardless of being odds on or 20/1.
Why we shouldn't play placepot like that
That sublime payoff came in, I think, 1993 when I was 22 years old (I went to uni a little bit later as I'd worked in a Job Centre for a while beforehand). Thirty-something years have since passed and I have never got especially close to reprising it. Now, it should be said that a fair number of years ago I changed my staking approach and in so doing have narrowed the range of possible outcomes: in plain English, I'm using smarter staking that places more of my bunce on more likely combinations and less of it on those Hail Mary plays. In other words, I'm doing it better these days.
The harsh reality is that, although I copped for a bigg'un during my formative punting years, that approach generally returned zero or something close to zero. It was a conveyor belt of famine punctuated by the occasional 'happy meal' and one enormous episode of all-you-can-eat gluttony. The reason I remember it is because it was a monstrous outlier.
Candidly, and without wishing to be a fun-sucker, I had significantly over-staked on an outsider in that wager. I can't remember what price the other horse in that race was but it would have been the jolly, or at worst the next in. Let's be generous and say it was 4/1 with the other one being 16/1 (again, I don't remember the detail but this is illustrative enough). In that situation, I had the same stake (half of the entire bet because it was leg 1) running on to a pair of horses, one of which was four times more likely to make the frame than the other!
Let me emphasise this point with more real world numbers. Let's suppose for a moment that we're playing the jackpot - so we don't have to calculate place odds - and that in a fictional sextet of races, we play the 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64 bets combo on horses priced at evens and 2/1 in each of the six legs.
The market reckons the chances of all of the even money shots winning is 63/1 (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64), or about a 1.56% chance.
But what do you suppose the odds of all the 2/1 shots winning are?
The math is simple again: it's 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 729 (or 728/1). That's about a 0.14% chance!
So you can see that including a lot of 16/1 shots in a placepot, or 10/1 shots in a jackpot, is at best extremely inefficient; and at worst, the punting equivalent of death by a thousand cuts.
Key takeaway: not all horses have equal chances to win or make the frame, even if/when we like their chance more than the market does. And so we should not stake every horse in every race to the same amount.
Why we make dumb bets
The maths are unarguable, and I know you know that. Very possibly, like me in the good old bad old days, you're making poor plays on the placepot.
But, as all the best sales copy likes to reassure you, it's not your fault...
They made you do it. Those tricksy tickets with their rows of boxes and handy little multipliers. They practically sleepwalk you into sculpting your rock of punting marble into a pebble of a winning ticket, gradually chipping away what turn out to be quite large chunks of your funds.
Think about that 2x2 through six races. Imagine you get one horse placed and one out of the frame in leg one. You've done half your dough there. Now imagine you had a 4/1 and an 8/1 as your brace on leg 1, and the 4/1 places. Let's say it was a quarter the odds the place for ease of calculation purposes, and we end up back with evens and 2/1. One has a notional 50% chance to place and the other 33% or so.
They should not be staked the same!
The real issue is that this seemingly small error is compounded six times in a placepot or jackpot bet with level stakes: a caveman bet. There's a reason it has that rather unflattering name.
And then there was light
Before too long - and it must have been unimaginably miserable prior - cavemen figured out how to make fire and, with that, light and warmth and cooked food. They never, ever returned to the dark cold raw days that preceded their pivotal discovery.
In its own small way, discovering smarter staking - without the need to do the clunky maths and place the tickets manually (although I did that for a while!) - has made me a smarter staker. Obviously.
If I'm being honest, I play the placepot far too often, even when I have nothing in the way of strong opinions. That hurts my bottom line, but smart staking keeps me in the game just fine. And I love the companionship of a race every half an hour while I'm working in the house alone. It's not just about winning, you know!
However, winning is obviously important. I've been wining a few quid consistently on small stakes jackpot tickets, and giving it back on the placepots because of their comforting side effects. I consider that a more than agreeable trade off. You may not, in which case you'll need to be more discerning with when you play the 'pots. All fine.
But none of us should be playing caveman perms any more. Let me spell it out for you...
How to Make Smarter Placepot / Multi-Race Bets
Until now, Tix, the tool I co-created with the guy who built the vast majority of the geegeez.co.uk racecards, has been a little under-appreciated by 'two by two' players because - I admit - it looks a little daunting on first inspection. It's really not. But I don't want you to just take my word for that, so I'm going to show you.
Smarter Placepot Bets #1: ABCX
Tix features something called ABCX, which is a means of making some horses more important than others on your tickets. It's a lot better than caveman staking.
However, if I really can't persuade you to try a different way and that is your preferrred style, just picking all horses in the 'A' column makes it possible to place your straight perm ticket on Tix - and receive a 5% bonus on any winnings. By the end of this post I hope you'll see there's a better way - which is equally simple.
ABCX allows users to separate their strongest fancies in a race (A) from their warm fancies (B) and their live outsiders (C) - as well as those horses which are not of interest (X). I've produced some video content about it here, and Dave Renham wrote some further content on ABCX here.
It's a great way to differentiate between horses you really like and those you kind of like, or horses that are short prices and those that are longer odds.
But it's not perfect. The staking approach is a little 'blocky' - think Minecraft or Sensible Soccer rather than Grand Theft Auto - so, while it's much better than level staking, it lacks nuance and it doesn't really allow the user to sculpt a ticket to their own preference. Despite that, I still sometimes favour it over...
Smarter Placepot Bets #2: Tix Plus 'Simple'
New in Tix this week is a second framework called Tix Plus. It's further split into 'Simple' and 'Pro' variants, which sit either side of ABCX in terms of ease of use.
Plus 'Simple' really is simple: you pick your stake and your horses and let the software do the rest. That's it.
But what's happening under the bonnet is clever, very clever.
First things first, though. To access Tix Plus, you need to change the 'Betting Mode' dropdown from ABCX to Tix Plus, like so:
Then pick your meeting and pool, and you'll be taken to the RACES tab. For Tix Plus in 'Simple' mode, it looks like this:
Let's quickly talk around this view. At the top are the legs of the bet (R1-R6, races 1 to 6), and just below that is the specific race (AYR R1 13:35, race 1 at Ayr, due off at 1.35pm UK time). On the right of that is another dropdown, currently set to 'Simple'. This is where you can choose the 'Pro' version if you prefer; I'll come on to that shortly.
The main body of the view has saddlecloth number, horse name, a column of checkboxes called 'Inc' (include), and the current odds in decimal. Later in the day (from 9am), the dashes on the right of the screen may include some arrows: a green 'up' arrow means a horse has been supported, a red 'down' arrow means it is drifting.
All columns are sortable and, personally, I tend to sort by odds so that I can quickly see the betting shape of the race.
At the bottom of the view is a summary displaying ticket cost, the total number of possible permutations/tickets, the number of tickets that will be placed and the number which will be 'pruned' (not placed), and the threshold at which that decision will be made.
Let me explain that, but I'll first say that the only thing you must know is that, usually, not all possible permutations/tickets will be placed. That is, there will normally be at least some tickets in the 'pruned' pile.
So what's happening behind the scenes here?
After you've chosen your stake and your minimum unit stake (I suggest starting with 1p for unit stake), you begin to build your tickets. The image below is after I've picked my horses in three of the six legs:
I've set my budget here to £20, and (unseen) I have two horses in R1, a banker in R2 and (visible here) three horses in R3. 2 x 1 x 3 = 6 possible tickets, and all are kept at this stage.
Let's go ahead and fill out the rest of the perm:
So it turns out the second half of this placepot sextet was much more competitive looking than the first. I ended up, for illustration purposes it should be said!, taking five horses in R4, and four each in R5 and R6. The image above shows R6, and my total possible tickets are 2 x 1 x 3 x 5 x 4 x 4 = 480. See 'Original: 480' at the bottom of the image.
But... the software is only retaining 435 of these and is discarding 45. Why, when £20 is plenty to cover 480 bets at 4p per line, is it not covering all permutations?
The answer is because not all lines are created equally. In my leg 3 (see image two up), I have an 8/11 (1.73) shot and a 13/2 (7.5) chance. Clearly the market doesn't believe they have the same prospects of placing, and neither do I. If we move on to the 'TICKETS' tab, you'll see what's happening here:
There's a lot going on in this image, so let's break it down. The main body of the view is dedicated to the tickets to be placed. The table headings are ticket (the selected horses on each ticket), %age (the percentage chance, based on the current win odds, of that ticket containing six winners*), £/line (the stake per line in that ticket), # (the number of lines in that ticket), Total (£/line x #, stake x lines, e.g. in th top row, £0.13 x 4 = £0.52).
I've clicked the little 'i' icon to the left of the first ticket, and it shows the individual breakdown of the four lines contained within it. Clicking the 'i' icon in the header row will open all of these should be curious to that microscopic level of detail!
There is then a 'PLACE TICKET' button at the end of each row. There is also a 'PLACE ALL BETS' button at the top. When you're happy with your bet, you can click that button and all tickets will be placed into the tote's pool.
*it is a little misleading to use win odds on placepots and other place pools as it implies your chances of getting a payout are hugely lower than they actually are. We will amend this in the next version but, for now, the key component is the 'threshold'. So let's quickly discuss that...
Threshold is the point at which two elements collide: your allocated budget running out, and the chances of a combination of horses being successful based on their odds. Basically, if there isn't enough money to proportionately stake all combinations, the software starts with the least likely single line combination of horses (based on their odds) and eliminates that combo. It carries on doing this until there are sufficient funds for the remaining 'kept' bets.
In this example, all bar 35 of the 480 possible combinations have been kept, at a total cost of £19.91. To see the combo's that were pruned, click the green 'Show Filtered Out Tickets' button:
All 45 pruned tickets included the '3' horse in R3. That was the 13/2 shot selected alongside an 8/11 and a 7/2.
The magic here is that, whereas £20 staked evenly across 480 bets would cover every possible pick for 4p, in Tix we have the most likely combinations covered for as much as 13p per line, and 106 different combinations covered for at least twice that 4p base stake.
Naturally, the flip side is that the least likely combo's have less than 4p staked on them, but those tickets - should they hit - will pay a much bigger dividend.
Tix is a realist, not a fantasist. It leans into the most likely outcomes and away from the Hail Mary's whilst still covering a fair number of those long shot bombs (depending on budget and unit stake).
Why is this good, and why is it bad?
Well, the bad news is you're less likely to hit that once in a lifetime payoff... but the good news is that, day to day, you'll get more returns that will keep you in the game longer and you still have the chance of plenty of fat divvies along the way.
Reminder: Tix Plus 'Simple' is choose stake, pick horses, place bet. The clever stuff is completely hands off.
Smarter Placepot Bets #2: Tix Plus 'Pro'
For the architects and sculptors out there, you - like me - can opt to be a little more hands on.
Welcome to Tix Plus 'Pro'!
This really is very cool, and it's the unidentical twin of Tix Plus 'Simple'.
Here's how 'Pro' looks:
The differences are two columns and one row. Columns first.
To the right of the odds/arrows columns are '%age' and 'Book'.
'%age' is a smoothed book percentage including the whole fields. It's done in 5% increments until we get to the serious longshots where 1% becomes the norm. In the example above, we see that Apache Tribe, odds of 1.83 (5/6 fractional) has a 45% %age. You might also note that the %age figures don't sum to 100. This is fine, because the 'Book' figures will always sum to 100.
In this example, we have three selected horses whose '%age' values are 45, 20 and 10, totalling 75. The 'Book' value for the favourite is 60, calculated simply by divided his '%age' by the sum of all selected '%age's. That is, 45/75 = 0.6 or 60%.
The beauty of 'Pro' is that you may overwrite any '%age' figure to emphasise your personal opinions.
If you love the jolly but still want a small bit of cover elsewhere, make that 45 number bigger. If you respect the jolly but feel his chance is over-stated, edit 45 to a smaller number. Below I've changed that %age to 35 and you can see how the division of stakes has changed in the 'Book' column.
By doing this, users can very tightly define the distribution of their budget through the bet.
The extra row appears at the bottom of the RACES view, and it is for 'Unnamed Favourite' (UNF). UNF doesn't show up on the 'Simple' version because it doesn't have a book percentage: we don't know which horse will be favoured, still less what price it will be.
In the 'Pro' view, selecting UNF will remind you to add a %age for it (see below). If you don't, it will simply be ignored. The chosen percentage will then be factored into the 'Book' calculations outlined above.
At the end of the sequence (six legs in this case), you'll again have summary info at the bottom of the view. This time, you can see I've got 459 of 480 possible combinations retained, and 21 pruned. The threshold is also slightly higher, which means my top staked ticket is now 12p per line rather than 13p previously, and I have slight amendments to other combinations. All of that is done in the engine room and is invisible to the user.
But you have ultimate control with Tix Plus 'Pro', so if you want to change things just tweak the '%age' figures in the races where you want that change.
Like I said, this is certainly not for everyone, but for those who want greater control over their multi-race pool play I think Tix Plus 'Pro' is like hitting the jackpot!
The Ultimate 'Smart' - Bonus Payouts on All Winning Tickets!
Tix enables everyone to bet placepots, jackpots and other multi-race tote bets in a smarter way. That already gives you a much better chance of coming out ahead. And, to compound that advantage, all winning tickets placed through Tix benefit from a 5% bonus. Every £100 in winnings get £5 more.
Let's say over a year you staked £2600 through Tix (£50/week, about £7/day), and your returns were £2500, a loss of £100. £2 a week for some daily fun is definitely a price I'd pay! But because of the 5% bonus, that £100 loss becomes a £25 win.
Now, obviously, there's nothing life-changing there; but the point I'm trying to highlight is that the bonus can easily be the difference between winning and losing over time and, of course, if you're a winning placepot punter, you're just going to win more!
Otherwise, you'll need to sign up with the tote first. You can do that here, then go to the link above.
I can't wait to hear how you get on with Tix Plus - and, of course, if you have any questions, just leave a comment below and I'll be sure to get back to you.
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/Gemini_Generated_Image_tbq4nktbq4nktbq4-scaled.png9852560Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2026-02-10 19:14:022026-02-10 19:27:19Introducing Tix Plus: A Placepot Tool for Everyone
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cookie1.jpg320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2026-01-15 11:32:382026-01-15 11:53:40A January Random Roundup
Using Tix for Jackpots, Placepots, Quadpots & the Scoop 6, primarily focusing on Placepots
Geegeez readers should by now be aware of the online software called Tix, which Matt built in conjunction with the developer who built much of the coding for the original geegeez.co.uk racecards and form tools, writes Dave Renham. The Tix software is designed to be used for tote multi-race pool bets such as the Jackpot, Placepot, Quadpot and Scoop 6. It enables punters to produce more sophisticated and strategic permutations than the bog-standard perm approaches most punters use.
Tote Bets: A Quick Intro
Before discussing the software, it should be noted that the Tote take a percentage out of any final pool, the amount depending on the bet. Below is a table showing the percentage take-outs for the main pool bets:
Pool bet
Percentage taken out
Jackpot
29%
Placepot
27%
Quadpot
26%
Scoop 6
30%
As we can see they are all in the same ballpark. If we consider the Placepot, therefore, if 27% is taken out that leaves 73% of the original pool being shared between winners.
To help understand the maths, here is an example. For a final total of £100,000 bet into a particular Placepot pool where there was £200 remaining at the end of the six races, the dividend would be worked out thus:
£100,000 x 73% = £73,000
£73,000 divided by 200 = £365
£365 is the dividend is to a £1 stake.
The lure of Placepots and Jackpots is the chance of a big payout for relatively small outlays. Personally, I have never regularly played the Jackpot but play plenty of Placepots. I’ve been fortunate enough to have enjoyed some reasonable wins, and one very big win, but of course there have been many occasions when I have lost all of my stake. As far as this article is concerned, I am going to focus on using Tix for Placepots, because it is the most commonly played of the tote multi-race bets.
Playing Placepots the Traditional Way
Let's first look at how we could play these pool bets without the aid of Tix.
One line 'Hail Mary'
The first method is to simply pick one horse in each race. In a Placepot, there are six legs and so that would be six horses. In order to win a share of the Placepot all six must either win or place. This would be the case even if we pick six favourites. For those wanting to put the favourite in as the only selection in each of the six races, this is possible because there is a Placepot option to back the unnamed favourite.
Tthere are plenty of races where the market is quite tight at the top and we would be guessing which horse is sent off favourite, so for ‘favourite’ fans this is a useful option. However, the chance of all six favourites winning or placing is surprisingly rare. Indeed, looking at the 177 flat race meetings held in the UK in April and May of this year only 13 times did six favourites win or place in each of the first six races on the card.
However, that did not mean there would have been 13 theoretical winning Placepots for favourite only backers. This is because three of these 13 did not count due to a situation where a joint favourite won or placed, but the other joint favourite did not. When this happens there can only be one horse deemed to be favourite so the horse with the lowest racecard number becomes the favourite for pool bet purposes. Hence, if we had gone down the unnamed favourite Placepot route in April and May we would have had 177 Placepots bets of which 10 won.
The problem with all favourites placing is that the dividend tends to be very low when this happens, and that was the case with all ten dividends as the table below shows:
Date
Course
Dividend to £1 stake
7th April 2025
Kempton
£6.20
12th April 2025
Brighton
£12.40
12th April 2025
Thirsk
£8.00
1st May 2025
Redcar
£11.50
3rd May 2025
Goodwood
£9.90
5th May 2025
Windsor
£10.50
9th May 2025
Nottingham
£7.30
21st May 2025
Chepstow
£13.20
23rd May 2025
Goodwood
£5.90
26th May 2025
Windsor
£8.00
If we had placed let’s say a £2 bet on each of the 177 Placepots our outlay would have been £354. Our returns would have been £185.80 showing a LOSS of £168.20. Ouch!
Favourites obviously command the most amount of money wagered in Placepots which is why, when all six win or place, the dividends are so low. Interestingly, there were two meetings in April and May where no favourites placed in any of the six races – the dividends for these meetings were somewhat different.
Date
Course
Dividend to £1 stake
19th April 2025
Musselburgh
£1954.50
31st May 2025
Lingfield
£4022
The '2x2'
For seasoned Placepot players selecting a single horse in each race is not a credible strategy. In the period discussed we have seen that putting the favourite as the only selection in each race secured a winning Placepot less than 6% of the time, and delivered significant losses.
An alternative and more popular approach is to choose two horses in each race giving players more coverage. We call this a permutation, or perm. If we choose two horses per race rather than one, the number of bets or lines goes up drastically from one to 64 because we multiply the number of selections per race to get the total number of selections.
1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 1 while 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 = 64
Take three horses per race and we are looking at 729 bets or lines.
Obviously, the chances of winning part of the pot increase but the more bets/lines we have the more we are staking, which will have an impact on any final returns.
Variable perms
To try and reduce the number of perms, some Placepot players vary the number of horses chosen for each race. Hence, they may have a couple of races where they choose just one horse – a so called ‘banker’; perhaps they have three horses in two of the other races, and five in each of the final two races.
In this scenario the number of bets or lines would be calculated 1 x 1 x 3 x 3 x 5 x 5 which equals 225 bets. This idea covers 18 horses in total (the same as the three horses in every race perm) but cuts the number of bets/lines down considerably.
Thus, varying the number of horses chosen per race is the most sensible method discussed to date; but it is time to talk Tix and a more sophisticated approach to adjusting the Placepot perms.
Introducing Tix
The Tix software allows us to use what is known as the ‘ABCX’ approach. This approach essentially allows players to group horses by order of confidence / perceived chance. In terms of a Placepot the thinking would be along these sorts of lines (or at least this is the way I think!) -
A Horses – horses that I believe are genuine contenders to win or place; or horses that I perceive to be overpriced within the mid-range of prices such as a 10/1 shot that I think ought to be 5/1, or a 12/1 shot that is 6/1 on my reading of the race.
B Horses – the next best options that we can make a case for especially if one or more of the A contenders underperform.
C Horses – horses that are unlikely to win but have some chance of placing. An example may be a horse overpriced at 33/1 we perceive should half that price at least. Or a less fancied horse well drawn over a course and distance that has a strong bias.
X Horses – horses that are excluded from calculations as their win or place chance seems extremely unlikely or I feel they are significantly over-factored in the market.
For Placepots my preferred approach is to have more A’s than B’s and maybe one or two C’s. However, for bigger meetings such as Royal Ascot, I tend to load up on A’s and have more C’s than B’s. I am sure others will have alternative approaches that may well be better than mine. Hopefully the more I use the software the more I can finesse my methods.
In terms of the Tix software the A horses will occur in more bets/lines than the B’s that in turn occur in more bets/lines than the C’s. The table below shows all the possible combinations or perms for each individual Placepot ticket – I have colour coded them to help make it clearer. A rated selections are in red, B are in black and C are in green.
This way of combining the horses is far more efficient and a lot cheaper! The way Tix is designed is that we can have a maximum of 28 individual tickets and this only occurs if we pick at least one horse in each of A, B and C positions in every race - as per the image above.
Tix Selection Flexibility
Keeping to the ‘three horses in a race scenario’, here are total number of bets/lines based on the Tix options, assuming we keep to the same combination for all six races. It includes the two I have already shared:
Combos
All 3 on A
2 on A, 1 on B
2 on A, 1 on C
1A, 1B, 1C
1 on A, 2 on B
1 on A, 2 on C
Total Bets
729
496
256
28
73
13
The table shows the flexibility of the Tix software in terms of being able to offer various ‘number of bet’ scenarios, and remember, these example numbers are based on choosing the same A, B and/or C combination for all six races. Assuming we wanted to put three horses into each race we of course could choose a different three-way combination for each race such as:
Race no.
Column A (no. of selections)
Column B (no. of selections)
Column C (no. of selections)
Total no. of horses in race
1
2
1
0
3
2
1
1
1
3
3
1
2
0
3
4
3
0
0
3
5
1
0
2
3
6
2
0
1
3
This particular Tix construction of three horses per race would equate to 138 lines. It would take several pages to list all possible Tix bet constructions of three horses in each of the six races, so I’ll spare readers that! On the Tix site, our ticket with this type of perm/construction would potentially look something like this:
To be clear, the green column is for A picks, the yellow is for B picks, and C picks are in the right hand sandy coloured column. And these numbers in the specific columns would give us the following ten tickets:
As we can see, for this example there are ten specific groupings (tickets), and we would need at least one of those of ten groupings to have a win or placed horse in each of the six races to get a return. Of course, we may achieve a return that is less than our original stake, so six ‘win or placers’ on one of the tickets does not guarantee a profit.
If all eighteen horses manage to place then we probably would be dreaming but in that unlikely scenario these ten specific groupings/tickets would combine to have all 138 bets/lines as winning ones.
Tix Staking Flexibility
So, one of the brilliant parts about using Tix is this selection flexibility. A further feature in terms of flexibility is that we can adjust our stakes in terms of the four main groupings. This is the default position with the same stakes on each:
However, anyone who has seen Matt post his Tix selections on the site (like he did brilliantly at Royal Ascot 2025, I might say) will know he has a favoured strategy thus:
- All A's: 4x unit stake
- Five A's with one B pick: 3x unit stake
- Four A's with two B picks: 2x unit stake
- Five A's with one C pick: 1x unit stake
Using the ‘Matt Method’ we would simply tick the relevant boxes thus:
Using the example of my ten tickets shared above, this means ticket 1 (all A's) has a 4x amplification, tickets 2 to 4 (any 5 A's with 1 B) are 3x unit stake, tickets 5 to 7 (any 4 A's with 2 B's) are 2x normal stakes, and tickets 8 to 10 (any 5 A's with 1 C) are 1x stakes.
Of course, this stake amplification on certain tickets will increase the overall outlay but we're pressing up our strongest opinions whilst mixing in some 'big dividend' prospects.
In this specific example based on an original 1p per bet/line, and having no increase in stakes (so betting all lines with the same stake of 1p), it would cost £1.38.
Using the 4-3-2-1 Matt method would increase stakes to £3.00. The reasoning behind Matt’s staking plan is logical. The A horses are more likely to win or place than the Bs, who in turn should outperform the Cs. Hence the all-A column should have the highest stake, the 5A 1B column should come next and so on.
This staking method is one option, possibly the best one; obviously there are plenty of others that could be used. Also, at this point, it should be noted there is another way to adjust our stakes. We can adjust individual tickets by clicking on the ‘stake’ box at the bottom of each ticket and changing the default stake.
For those readers who have yet to use Tix, how to use the software is specific to each individual. Some I’m sure will not adjust stakes, some will. Some will load up with A’s, some may spread their horses more evenly. However, it is important to appreciate that each race meeting is different, and we are likely to play a Placepot at Carlisle with very few runners on the card differently to one at Royal Ascot where field sizes are much bigger and very competitive.
Wider Coverage
Thinking of the bigger meetings like Royal Ascot with their huge and competitive fields, it is likely that there will be an increase in the number of horses that will be used in our placepots. Earlier I looked at an imaginary three horses per race scenario sharing how placing them in different columns affected the total number of lines. Now let's look at the same idea using four horses per race (24 horses in total). Again, I have assumed that we have split the horses into the same columns for each race. Obviously placing four horses in the exact same columns for each of the six races is something that in practice we would almost definitely not do, but my reasoning is two-fold. Firstly, it is easy for me to calculate and share the total number of bets for each grouping. And secondly it gives us a decent understanding of the ‘number of total bets’ differences we can get using this flexible software:
Combos
All 4 on A
3 on A, 1 on B
3 on A, 1 on C
2 on A, 2 on B
2 on A, 2 on C
Total Bets
4096
3402
2187
1408
448
Combos
2 on A, 1 on B, 1 on C
1 on A, 3 on B
1 on A, 2 on B, 1 on C
1 on A, 1 on B, 2 on C
1 on A, 3 on C
Total Bets
688
154
79
34
19
We can see that if selecting all 24 horses in the A column (four in each race) the number of bets/lines is a massive 4096. However, when we spread them more evenly but keep mostly A’s, such as a 2A, 1B and 1C scenario for each race, this cuts the bets/lines down to 688.
As I mentioned earlier for ease of calculations, I have assumed that each race has the same A, B, C combo or grouping. But, of course, Tix players will play each race according to its make-up. Considerations will be affected by the number of runners, the individual strengths of the runners, the relative prices of those runners, etc. For example, a three-runner race with a 1/12 favourite could see us choose that favourite on A as a stand-alone banker. A three-runner race where all three horses are priced between 13/8 and 2/1 may mean we choose all three in the A column. Only one of them will count in a final Placepot dividend while the other two will be losers and all lines involving those two will ‘die’.
Example Tix Play: Royal Ascot
I now want to share my Tuesday Placepot at Royal Ascot this year and how I played it using Tix. In terms of staking, I didn’t use Matt’s 4-3-2-1 method, I simply kept to the same 1p stakes per ticket.
Leg 1 - Queen Anne Stakes:
This was the race I previewed for Geegeez on the Tuesday and happily my two selections came first and second. The winner, Docklands, returned 14/1 (backed in from 25/1) so that was a good start to the week on an individual punting front. The runner up Rosallion was favourite and pre-race I was tempted to leave him as the stand-alone ‘A’ selection in my Placepot; but the race did have a very competitive look about it. So I played safe taking five selections across two columns. I also split Rosallion and Docklands up putting Docklands on C – silly me as that turned out.
Leg 1 selections
A – numbers 4 and 10
C - numbers 3, 5 and 6
Horses that won/placed: one A, and one C
Leg 2 - Coventry Stakes:
These 2yo races with loads of runners and little form are the ones I fear most in Placepots with only three places available (and so it proved here). I went big trying to cover as many bases as possible with four A’s and four C’s:
A – numbers 1, 2, 13 and 20
C - numbers 8, 9, 11 and 17
Horses that won/placed: one C
This was frustrating from the point of view that two of my A selections finished fourth and fifth. On the flip side, I was still in the pot with one of my C’s placing, and two of the placers were 66/1 and 80/1 meaning very few tickets had those runners on them.
Having played just A’s and C’s I was now needing at least one A horse to win or place in the final four races.
Leg 3 - King Charles III Stakes:
This was another horrible race with 23 runners and only three places up for grabs. My only strong opinion on the race was that American Affair was overpriced and I was happy for that to be one of my A’s. I went four A’s and two C’s. American Affair won.
A – numbers 1, 7, 14 and 16
C - numbers 3 and 12
Horses that won/placed: two A’s
Leg 4 - St James's Palace Stakes:
Although there were only two places available in this seven-runner race, there were four rags and an odds-on fav in Field Of Gold. I had him and Henri Matisse as my A’s. No need for any ‘C’ cover.
A – numbers 1, 3
Horses that won/placed: two A’s
Leg 5 - Ascot Stakes:
There were two at a price I liked here in Nurburgring and Ascending. I decided to split them with Nurburgring on A and Ascending on C. I put one of the well fancied Mullins pair on A and what I hoped was another live outsider on C.
A – numbers 13 and 20
C - numbers 3 and 9
Horses that won/placed: one A, and one C
Ascending beat Nurburgring for a £665 exacta (and no I didn’t have it!). At least I had one A selection that counted so was still in the Placepot game with one to play.
Leg 6 - Wolferton Stakes:
With no eventual non-runners this 16-runner Listed race had only three horses to count in the Placepot. Before the race I was very keen on Sons And Lovers thinking this must finish in the frame. I decided two have two A’s and one C.
A – numbers 9 and 14
C - number 15
Horses that won/placed: one A
Sons And Lovers faded into fifth annoyingly, but fortunately my other A got the job done.
Here's how these selections would have looked in the Tix columns.
Leg
Column A
Column B
Column C
1
4, 10
3, 5, 6
2
1, 2, 13, 20
8, 9, 11, 17
3
1, 7, 14, 16
3, 12
4
1, 3
5
13, 20
3, 9
6
9, 14
15
The numbers in bold are the horses that won or placed, but two of them ended up being redundant (number 5 in leg 1 and number 9 in leg 5). The rest, in red, counted on one of the '5 on A, 1 on C' lines and, because I had two win/placed horses in two of the races, I ended up with four winning lines (1 x 1 x 2 x 2 x 1 x 1).
The Placepot to a £1 stake paid £2767.40 meaning each of my four 1p lines netted £27.67, so the overall return on that winning ticket was £110.68 (£27.67 x 4 winning lines). Taking my stake into account and the 5% bonus the Tote pays on winning Tix tickets (yet another reason for using Tix!), I ended up with a profit on the bet of just over £102.
What if?
One two-word phrase we are all too familiar with is ‘what if?’ - so, just for fun, I am going to play that game now. What if I had put six of my original selections in different columns? More specifically, what if my three ‘placers’ on C had been put on A instead; and three of my ‘losers’ from A had been put on C instead?
To achieve this scenario, I could have swapped horses 4 and 5 over in race one, horses 1 and 9 in race two, and horses 20 and 3 in race five. If I had instead done that, I would have had two places in legs 1, 3, 4 and 5, and one place each in legs 2 and 6. That would have given me 16 winning lines quadrupling the return to over £400. Considering all my selections were in A and C this scenario could have happened. Likewise, if a few of my winning A’s ended up as C's I would have won diddly!
Sticking with the ‘what if?’ line, what if my original ticket had been staked differently using Matt’s 4,3,2,1 method? Well, due to only having one successful 5A 1C combo the same payout of £110.68 would have occurred on that ticket (same 1p stake), but the cost of the overall bet would have increased by £7.68 meaning my overall profit would be slightly down at just over £94. (I appreciate that an extra £7.68 stake would have impacted the real-life pot, but it is such a small amount if I had played the bet this way instead my profit would have been virtually the same, give or take a penny or two).
I also looked at what would have happened if I had put all my C selections as B’s instead, sticking to my original 1p per line staking. This would have added an extra £20 or so to the overall stake but I would have had 12 winning lines so my return would have been around the £300 mark (allowing again for any marginal change in the actual Placepot payout due to the extra £20 of staked funds).
Summary
In this article I feel I have only scratched the surface when it comes to the potential and scope of the Tix software. In the first half of the article, I gave a general overview of how Tix works coupled with the flexibility it has in terms of limiting/varying the number of lines using certain configurations. In the second half I have delved into one of my recent Placepot plays looking at what happened, and what could have happened if I had made some slight alterations via Tix to the make-up of my Placepot.
Before writing this, I was a regular user of Tix. Having spent time researching and writing about it, my appreciation and confidence in Tix has improved even more. I am expecting Tix to help me profit further when tackling Placepots in the future. I might even be tempted into a few Jackpots too...
- DR
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/tix1.png237779Dave Renhamhttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngDave Renham2025-07-02 07:32:162025-07-02 08:11:11How to Use Tix for Multi-Race (Placepot) Bets
This week, as part of our Royal Ascot content, I'll be making a suggested placepot permutation each day.
I'll be using the ABCX approach, outlined here, and some online software called Tix which I built in conjunction with Nige, the guy who coded most of the original geegeez.co.uk racecards and form tools. [It is excellent software, though I say so myself]
Basically, I'm creating a number of different placepot bets based around how strongly I fancy various horses; and I'm weighting my stakes accordingly.
When I say 'I', I mean Tix is doing all of that; I'm just picking horses and choosing whether they're A (strongest fancy), B (fair chance) or C (dark horse/lively outsider). X are the horses I'm discarding from contention.
Tix Bonus
Every winning ticket placed through Tix benefits from a 5% bonus return. Win £100? You'll get £105. Win £500? Enjoy an extra £25. Just for placing your bets through Tix.
Prizes to be won
And, because it's Royal Ascot week, we've got some Tix prizes to give away
Tuesday to Friday
For the first four days of the Royal meeting, the Tix player with the highest return on investment on a single ticket will win £50.
Saturday
On the final day of Royal Ascot, the Tix player netting top ROI will win £100, credited to their tote account.
So that's £300 in prizes this week!
What do you need?
You simply need a tote account. Get one here if you don't already have one. [You'll probably be eligible for extra bonuses when signing up, but obviously do check the T's and C's]
**
OK, that's the set up. Let's get to it. The first question is where to go narrow and where to spread out. My inclination was to be narrow in the Group 1's but the Queen Anne and King Charles III are very open, and I hate the 'seven runner with an odds on' feel of the St James's Palace!
Leg 1 - Queen Anne Stakes:
In the end I've opted to bank in the first race and prey (and potentially place lay) for Rosallion. He should improve a ton from Newbury. There are lots and lots of dangers but I want to throw plenty of mud in later legs so it's Rosallion banker and devil take the hindmost.
A - 10 Rosallion
Leg 2 - Coventry Stakes:
The 123 last year were 80/1, 40/1, 50/1 so I'm putting a cast of thousands on a dreamy C ticket. I'll need A horses to place in the all other five legs for this to fly and, in truth, it's probably not too smart. I'm also loading up on A's. If we survive leg 2, it will be interesting.
A - 1 American Gulf, 9 Gstaad, 12 Postmodern, 13 Power Blue, 20 Underwriter
C - 4 Bone Marra, 5 Bourbon Blues, 6 Coppull, 8 Gavoo, 10 Kolkata Knight, 16 Shaatir, 17 Super Soldier, 19 Tricky Tel
Leg 3 - King Charles III Stakes:
23 runners, only three places up for grabs. Sheesh. Regional is fast, so too Asfoora who sees out a stiff five well as she did when winning this last year. Believing is a third very obvious dart. Hard to see all three missing the podium. Ed Walker has improved Mgheera since she arrived from France and she may not be finished yet.
A - 7 Regional, 12 Asfoora, 14 Believing, 16 Mgheera
Leg 4 - St James's Palace Stakes:
I really want to bank on Henri Matisse but I'm not brave enough. You might be!
A - 1 Field Of Gold, 3 Henri Matisse
Leg 5 - Ascot Stakes:
Willie has a good grip on the market here, and he's bagged Buick and Moore to ride Poniros and Reaching High respectively. That pair will take out chunks of the pool between them so we need to find something that might knock them off the tickets. Poniros is drawn higher than ideal. East India Dock's jump mark of 145+ implies he has a bit more to give on the level though he's been in a lot of scraps without a break. 18 is a bad draw, too. Manxman is progressive, handles big fields, is tactically versatile and has a great post. Mr Hampstead has snuck in at the bottom of the weights and is also well drawn and progressive.
Woot City is well related, well drawn and a massive price. C. Divine Comedy placed last year and the trainer has a fantastic Ascot record. Also C, along with the well drawn guesses Ascending and Saturn.
C - 3 Divine Comedy, 9 Ascending, 12 Saturn, 18 Woot City
Leg 6 - Wolferton Stakes:
Only once since this race became a non-handicap in 2018 has the unnamed favourite missed the frame - and that was in the inaugural non-handicap renewal. It's likely to be Enfjaar but we'll let the market decide. On B, I'll roll with a Wathnan trio in Haunted Dream, Torito and King's Gambit.
A - Unnamed favourite
B - 10 Haunted Dream, 11 King's Gambit, 15 Torito
Full ticket view
For pennies, £24.96 stakes. A single placed entry from A in each leg gives a 4p winning line, but of course it's possible to get more than one in each.
Full disclosure: even if this perm gets 'winning' tickets, there's a chance it pays less than the total stakes. We're really trying to get something interesting to happen at some point in the sequence!
The full A (green) B (yellow) C (tan) view looks like this:
And the breakdown by ticket is like this:
Remember, you need to have a placed selection in each leg on at least one ticket. That means at least four races with A picks placing.
Place your Tix bets here - and you'll be in line for a 5% bonus on winning tickets, and a chance to win £50 daily through Royal Ascot.
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/TixPicks.png320830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2025-06-16 12:01:422025-06-16 17:23:01Royal Ascot Tix Picks, Day 1
With four days of fierce sport at the Cheltenham Festival looming in the headlights, and much of the form study complete, now is a great time to think about strategy.
Availing of any bookmaker concessions to which you're still entitled is a no-brainer, and the best I'm aware of to date on that score is the tote's "money back as a free bet if second", which will be honoured on all 28 Festival races. Allied to their guarantee to at least match the industry starting price, it's one I'll be using with some regularity through the week.
The other tote angle I'll be playing all week is swinging at the massive placepot pools - £750,000 guaranteed daily, but likely to be closer to a million quid is my guess. And possibly also a crack at Tuesday's jackpot.
To help think about how to play the Cheltenham Festival placepot, let's start at the beginning...
Getting set up
The first thing you need is a tote account. You'll need that to get the free bet if second concession as well, of course. Most readers will already have a tote account but if you don't yet, you can get yours here. You'll probably be offered some other sweetener(s) to open and play on that account, but obviously always check the terms and conditions.
Once you've got your tote account, it's time to know a bit about the way it tends to shake down in CheltenhamPlacepotLand (that's not a real place, obviously).
The Shape of Cheltenham Placepot Dividends
The nature of the Festival is that some days feel harder to bet than others; and that's mainly, as evidenced by the tables below, because some days are harder to bet than others.
This first table shows the pool size and declared placepot dividend for each of the last twelve Cheltenham Festivals. I've colour coded the 'dividend' column where red is a skinny one and green is a big fat juicy (and almost certainly nigh on impossible to hit) payout.
Realistically, you'd have needed a crystal ball or a very, very, very lucky Mr Felt Tippy to find a placed horse six times in some of those Friday sequences. At the other end of the spectrum, there have been plenty of meh divvies. The sweet spot of gettable and worth getting is in the yellow coloured blocks. Happily, there are lots of those.
Yearly breakdown
In the next two tables, I've broken down these data into Festival years and Festival days. Years first.
Last year was a flattish one for dividends, the average and median closely aligned at a little north of a hundred quid. But the year before, 2023, saw a median of seven grand. (For the non-maths buffs, the mean average is the sum of the four days' dividends divided by four whereas the median is the middle value of the four days' dividends when placed in order - because there isn't a middle number in four days we take the average of the middle two values. Hopefully that makes vague sense at least.)
There has been the odd flat year from a median perspective, but eight of the twelve years rounded out above £200; and in a quarter of the years the median was better than a thousand of your English pounds (or Irish Euros - you can play those, too, don't you know).
Which day is hardest?
Let's look at the individual days now. There have been a few changes to the race programme this year, both in terms of race conditions and sequence, the impact of which cannot be known at this stage. If the changes have served their purpose, field sizes will be bigger, and the implication is that finding placed horses may be slightly more challenging - and therefore dividends may be commensurately higher. That's the theory at least.
Here's how the dozen years looked on a day to day basis:
The means are all over the place due to some massively outlying dividends. Tuesday has a £91,000 for a £1 return on its dance card, for example; that's why median is so useful. We can see that, with a median of just £42, Tuesday is typically the 'easiest' day to hit the placepot.
Following that median column down shows a sliding scale of difficulty through the week, culminating in what I like to call "give back Friday", which of course very much presumes you've anything to return at the end of Thursday!
Anyway, those are the numbers. Tuesday may be a day to go narrow, Wednesday and Thursday are days to sharpen the quill, and Friday might be a day to be lucky rather than good.
Bonus Bunce #1
Value is the name of the game, however you play it. If you play for fun, you'll stretch the fun out for longer if you get value. If you play for funds, you don't need me to tell you about the absolutely necessity of getting value. Me? I'm in for both, and seeing as you're reading this, I'd wager you are, too.
So here are two slices of bonus bunce coming your way this week. Three if you count the tote win 'money back as a free bet if second' concession. I keep mentioning it because it's really very good. Anyway, I digress.
The first bonus chip is Tix, a piece of software I developed with Nige, the guy who built most of the geegeez website, that does smart (and less smart if you prefer) staking on multi-race bets like the placepot. Tix saves, literally, hours of faff if you want to cover the most likely permutations without shelling out a gazillion escudos. And - here's where the bonus comes in - winning tickets get paid 5% extra.
If five percent doesn't sound that much, keep in mind that at the end of the punting year it's comfortably the difference between winning and losing overall for a big chunk of the type of literate racing players found ambling across the verdant plains of a site like this one.
In plain English, if you're playing placepot and you're not staking optimally and you're not getting extra money when you win, you're doing it wrong. Don't do it wrong.
Tix is easy to use and if you have a tote account, you've got all you need to get started with it.
1 If you need to, get your tote account from this link
4 Put your top fancies in the 'A' column, with lesser hopes on 'B' and perhaps 'C'
5 Cheer them home
6 Get 105% of the dividend on your winners
Bonus Bunce #2
As well as the above, Tix players will be automatically entered into a competition where one (or more) lucky 'potters will share £100 each day. The winner(s) will be the person who gets the highest stake-to-return multiple. For example, if your ticket cost was £2.40 and the return was £240, your stake to return multiple would be 100 (£2.40 x 100 = £240).
We'll do all the sums so you don't need to worry about that. Just know that I chose this approach because it makes it accessible to all players, whether you stake a couple of pounds (or less) or hundreds. We all bet differently and to different stakes, and that should never matter. So the stake to return method makes it a game for everyone to play.
A couple of admin lines on the comp:
In the event of a tie, the prize will be shared between all tied players. There are no tie breaker provisos.
Only bets placed via Tix on Cheltenham multi-race pools (placepot, jackpot, quadpot, Scoop6, placepot 7) will count.
The judge's (my) decision is final - I'm sure it won't come to that.
Prizes will be credited to winners' accounts on the morning following racing, e.g. Wednesday morning for Tuesday's winner(s).
Please do enter if you're into placepots, jackpots, quadpots and the like. Your first spin on Tix might be a bit confusing but you'll very quickly get the hang of it. And if you want to simply play the same bet you always do - but with 5% extra when you win, and the chance to cop £100 in the competition - just put all of your picks in the 'A' column, and choose 'x1' on the 'TICKETS' tab - see below.
It's simple once you know how. You can play for a little as penny stakes, so feel free to have a practice run today. Here's the link to TIX again.
If you have any questions, just drop them in the comments below and I'll do my best to answer.
Now, let's get this party started - good luck!
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/placepotpointers-e1462366254647.jpg317803Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2025-03-09 22:29:522025-03-09 22:29:52How to play the Cheltenham Festival Placepot
The Cheltenham Festival is almost upon us. For some it's just another race meeting, for many it's a special week in the racing calendar, and for a few it's Christmas and birthday rolled into one. Wherever you fit on that spectrum there are things about betting on Cheltenham that are different and that you ought to know. Those extend to what we're doing here on geegeez.co.uk, so let me share the plan for next week...
Daily Festival Previews
We'll have daily previews through the week covering all of the seven races each day. I'm delighted to say that I've got a crack squad of racing thinkers and writers to help you comb the form. They are:
Rory Delargy, a man who has forgotten considerably more than I'll likely ever know about the winter game. Alongside Ruby Walsh, he's a contributor to the Cheltenham Paddy Podcast; and is one half of sportinglife's Racing Consultants as well as a regular correspondent for the Irish Field. He's a long-time friend of geegeez, having penned articles occasionally here for a decade and more.
David Massey is the other half of Racing Consultants and our own 'Roving Reporter'. In his Trackside guise, he is a regular at most of the major meetings, casting an expert eye (two, actually) across the paddock discerning those ready to go and those for whom improvement can be expected another day.
Dave Renham is our resident number-cruncher-in-chief, diving deeply into the data for your delectation every midweek. This is a maiden spin for Dave in the geegeez race preview fold and I'm excited to read his contributions.
Paul Jones is Mr Original Cheltenham Festival Guide, having authored that venerable tome from its inception in 2000 up until 2015. More recently he's been running his own premium service and, as well as racing, is a recognised expert on the Eurovision Song Contest amongst other specialisms. Paul has just finished ghost authoring Gary Wiltshire's new book, Fifty Years in the Betting Jungle, which is available here.
Matt Tombs is a second trends legend, taking up the Weatherby's Cheltenham Festival Guide mantle from Paul in seamless fashion. In recent years, Matt too has focused on his private service, though he can still be found articulately sharing his considered data-driven opinions on the Matchbook podcast and website.
They are all extremely welcome (back) to geegeez. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, you'll be lumbered with my thoughts for the remaining two races each day. Well, you can't have everything, can you?
Remember, it's a one-TWENTY start each day this year, so don't oversleep!
What else?
As well as those daily previews, we've a dedicated Cheltenham zone which you can access here. There you'll find the latest news and updates about the horses, trainers and jockeys associated with the Festival; full trends analysis from Andy Newton across the four days and 28 races; and links to the races themselves.
Gold subscribers will have access to pace maps, full form, video replay links, and our profiling tools, Instant Expert and Profiler. You can grab a weekly ticket for just £15 here.
Offers Galore
There will be offers galore throughout the week and one of the best chances to come out in front at the Cheltenham Festival is to press up any and all for which you're eligible. One of the very best that I'm aware of at this stage is Tote's 'Money Back as a Free Bet if Second' on all 28 races. So, for example, you could bet Kopek Des Bordes in the Supreme and get your stake reloaded if one horse beats him; or Brighterdaysahead in the Champion Hurdle and get a free bet if Constitution Hill does Constitution Hill things.
Obviously there will be races where your pick is neither first nor second, but this offer is one I'll be playing in almost all of the non-handicaps at least.
Geegeez' sister site, Tix, is a partner of Tote and I'm happy to mention their great deals for customers. If you don't yet have a tote account you can get one here. Then you'll be able to a) get their 'new account' goodness, b) play Tix and c) avail of the offer above.
N.B. You need to opt in to this offer which you can do from the 'Promotions' tab on tote's website.
Elsewhere, bet365 will have daily Super Boosts - one horse they think they can get beaten and on which they are prepared to offer a tempting price.
William Hill are offering players a free bet (stake varies) to use on Day 1.
And I expect all bookmakers to have something for at least some customers before Tuesday's action gets underway - so keep your eyes peeled.
Quick disclaimer: obviously, you need to read the terms and conditions for any offer you're wanting to avail of. Make sure to opt in where required, and only bet what you'd otherwise burn on beer, coffee or something else frivolous.
Daily Tix Competition: Win £100 each day!
If you're new around here, you may not know about Tix, a brilliant piece of tote multi-race software, I co-created. It basically allows for smarter perms on wagers such as the placepot, jackpot, Scoop 6, quadpot, and placepot 7. The short video below explains how it works:
We've teamed up with tote to offer a daily Tix competition across the four days of Cheltenham. You'll be entered when you place any Cheltenham multi-race bet through the Tix app, and there's £100 in cash each day to the player with the highest stake to return ratio.
What is a stake to return ratio? Well, it's basically the ticket odds, and it's a way of making the competition equally accessible to smaller and larger staking players.
Here are a couple of examples to illustrate how it will work:
Example 1: Ticket cost £1.20, ticket payout (return) £42.50
Stake to return ratio is 42.5/1.2 = 35.42
Example 2: Ticket cost £10, ticket payout (return) £180
Stake to return ratio is 180/10 = 18
In these scenarios, Example 2 returns more actual cash (£180 vs £42.50), and a bigger actual profit (£170 vs £41.30), than Example 1.
But Example 1 has the higher stake to return ratio (35.42 vs 18) and would therefore win the competition if these were the two entries.
A couple of rules.
In the event of a tie, the prize will be shared between all tied players. There are no tie breaker provisos.
Only bets placed via Tix on Cheltenham multi-race pools (placepot, jackpot, quadpot, Scoop6, placepot 7) will count.
The judge's (my) decision is final - I'm sure it won't come to that.
Prizes will be credited to winners' accounts on the morning following racing, e.g. Wednesday morning for Tuesday's winner(s).
What now?
Already on site, in our Cheltenham Festival Zone, are daily trends for all four days; some preview night notes and a further trends deep dive into the Gold Cup; a glut of latest news; and links to the 28 races. If you're a Gold or Lite subscriber, those races will have extra detail such as recent winners, pace maps, and form profiles. You can get Gold (or Lite) here.
I can't wait to get started!
Matt
https://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/CheltenhamFestival_JLT_2019.jpg319830Matt Bisognohttps://www.geegeez.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/geegeez_banner_new_170x78.pngMatt Bisogno2025-03-07 09:14:172025-03-10 08:31:092025 Cheltenham Festival Prep
So, here we are, with what is I think will be my last column on Geegeez. After countless episodes of Stat of The Day, Racing Insights and more recently here on Tix Picks, my time is up.
Sadly a combination of having to go to press early on Friday and the possibility of abandonments are forcing my hand a little, but Saturday's racing is supposed to come from Cork, Sandown Southwell, Wincanton & Wolverhampton, although it's quite possible there'll be no UK jumps racing.
If you're new to Tix Picks, it's worth taking a moment to review the links in the next section; if you've been before, let's crack on...
Saturday's meetings, pools and minimum guarantees are as follows, including a huge £100,000 placepot guarantee at Sandown...
I don't really 'do' Irish racing and both UK tracks are being inspected after I leave the North to head to Exeter to return my youngest to University, so I'm only faced with a choice of two modest-looking A/W cards on the Tapeta. The Southwell card looks a marginally higher standard than the Wolverhampton one, so let's head there for six races...
Race 1 @ 2.47...This looks like a two-horse race between (1) Mdawi and (3) Jiff's Army, both finished third on their last runs of 2024 with the latter having also done so in his previous outing. he also raced on Friday, winning by a length and a half at Lingfield over a mile.
I'll take both (1) Mdawi and (3) Jiff's Army here.
Race 2 @ 3.22...Alyara was narrowly beaten at Chelmsford two starts ago and then won a 1m handicap here at Southwell a fortnight ago. The drop in trip is interesting but he should go well again. Coconut Bay had a spell where he finished 222133931 in the spring/summer but hasn't really hit those heights again since a win over this trip at Catterick in August, but is now 2lbs below that winning mark
Inexplicable is a healthy 10 from 70 on tapeta, but he seems to save his best for Wolverhampton where he is 8/41 as opposed to his 1/18 here and he folded tamely at Newcastle on Thursday. Shaka is a bit of an A/W enigma, failing to win any of 16 starts, but has been the runner-up in three of his last seven, including two here at Southwell, of which one was over this course and distance.
Tenyatta has a slightly better A/W record at 1/12, but it's not much to shout about, although he was less than a length behind Alyara here a fortnight ago when 3rd of 12, so could well get involved again.
It's not a good race and should take much winning and I think that (1) Alyara, (8) Tenyatta and possibly (4) Coconut Bay are the ones to be with.
Race 3 @ 4.03...There are only three runners that remotely interest me here, so all three will be going on the bet builder...
(5) Fact Or Fable won at Bath in mid-August and although winless in six runs since, did show some signs of a return to some semblance of form when 4th of 12 at Wolverhampton on Boxing Day, beaten by little more than half a length and just a head behind Monsieur Fantaisie (below) who finished third.
(7) Monsieur Fantaisie won here over track and trip and as stated above was a narrowly defeated placer at Wolverhampton just over a week ago. Off the same weights, I suppose the placings would remain unchanged, but there's not much between them.
(10) Tathmeen looks the most likely of the rest of the field to chase the above pair home and this 10 yr old veteran is no stranger to the winners' enclosure, having won 13 times on the A/W and after some indifferent form, is now 2lbs below his last winning mark and could surprise a few in this weak affair.
Race 4 @ 4.35...The one I 'like' most here is probably (1) Line Of Force who has three wins and a runner-up finish from his six starts to date and won here over 6f on his A/W debut last time out. More is expected from him now going handicapping. The biggest danger is likely to come from (2) Art Market who won a couple of handicaps on turf in the summer, one at 6f and one at today's trip. Hasn't raced for over three months and now makes an A/W debut 1lb lower than his last turf run.
Race 5 @ 5.05...Moon Over Miami has only raced twice before winning both times at Class 5 over 1m2f/1m3½f on the Flat. Might need the run though after eight months off and a two-step rise in class for his A/W debut. Old Harrovian was last seen finishing third of fourteen in a decent Class 2 handicap at Kempton on his comeback from a four month break. Since then, the winner has won again and the third placed horse has been a runner-up, so that bodes well here.
Asgard's Captain is 5 from 9 on the A/W over the last year with a runner-up finish to boot. He comes here off a win at Newcastle three weeks ago where he stayed on well and I'm not sure a 2lb rise in weight anchors him just yet. Glen Buck won both his first two races a fortnight apart in Jan/Feb of 2023; both on Tapeta and at trips of 1m and 1m1½f. He then reappeared at Wolverhampton six weeks to finish a very creditable third of thirteen over 1m1½f, defying his 656-day layoff and he'd be entitled to come on for having had that run.
Moon Over Miami is plenty good enough for this on another day, but I've concerns about fitness, class and the A/W debut, so I'll set him aside in favour of (6) Old Harrovian, (8) Asgards Captain & (10) Glen Buck
Race 6 @ 5.35...Not for the first time today that my picks almost select themselves, as there are only three I'm interested in.
(1) Just Ten High is 1172301 on the A/W and 1721 here at Southwell. he tackled 6f for the first time in his latest race and duly won won here over course and distance and must be the one to beat off a strong gallop.
(7) Bomb Squad has also won over C&D albeit back in August, but he comes here in good nick having finished 3521 in his last four and 321 in his last three over today's trip, all on tapeta including a win at Wolverhampton last time out.
(8) Laura's Breeze hasn't quite been as successful as the other pair, but she has made the frame in 9 of her 18 A/W starts and has 2 wins and 3 further places from 11 on tapeta. Her recent form reads 2733, so she's clearly in good nick and has won here in the past.
*
All of which gives me...
Leg 1: (1) Mdawi and (3) Jiff's Army
Leg 2: (1) Alyara, (4) Coconut Bay and (8) Tenyatta
Leg 3: (5) Fact Or Fable, (7) Monsieur Fantaisie & (10) Tathmeen
Leg 4: (1) Line Of Force & (2) Art Market
Leg 5: (6) Old Harrovian, (8) Asgards Captain & (10) Glen Buck
Leg 6: (1) Just Ten High, (7) Bomb Squad & (8) Laura's Breeze
...and here's how I'd play them, whilst trying to stay close to a nominal £20 total stake...
And that, as they say, is a wrap. I'd like to thank everyone who has taken their time to read my ramblings over the last thirteen or so years in one guise or another, I have to say it has been a lot of fun.
Good Luck for Saturday, however you play the placepot and it's goodbye from me.
Friday's racing comes from Lingfield, Musselburgh & Southwell.
If you're new to Tix Picks, it's worth taking a moment to review the links in the next section; if you've been before, let's crack on...
Today's meetings, pools and minimum guarantees are as follows, including a £50,000 placepot guarantee at Southwell...
Again we'll follow the money down to Southwell for six races, starting with...
Race 1 @ 4.30...Sisterandbrother has already won on the Flat and over hurdles, but has yet to get off the mark on the A/W after seven attempts, although his last two visits to Southwell have seen him finish third on both occasions, beaten by around two lengths over similar trips to today. Young Endless has made the frame in 7 of 12 on the A/W, winning three times, Those three wins were all here at Southwell where he is 31211 and he's 2 from 2 over 1m6f here but he has struggled over this shorter trip in the past and hasn't been seen for seven months.
Paradoxical is 121 in his last three starts including a Tapeta win at Wolverhampton and a distance win at Lingfield last time out when sent off as the 11/10 fav on New Year's Eve. Up 5lbs for that win, but he was pretty comfortable there if truth be told. Khangai won over course and distance two months ago and has finished 3312 in four races since, all on Tapeta including a win over this trip at Wolverhampton before a 1.25 length defeat here over 1m6f five days ago. He now drops back in trip, but runs off the same mark and should be involved.
(1) Sisterandbrother, (4) Paradoxical & (9) Khangai are my picks here, as Young Endless could well need the run.
Race 2 @ 5.00...Palmar Bay won three of ten on the Flat at Classes 2/3, including finishing third on his last run of the season at Haydock in mid-October. He then went really well on his A/W debut when second of seven just half a length down at Lingfield and now drops in class for a first run on Tapeta. Lattaash comes here off the back of finishing 3rd of 12 in a Class 4 handicap at Newcastle and then winning well in a Novice race at Wolverhampton, both off today's mark of 83. he has made the frame in 5 of 6 starts to date, all on the A/W and I can see that becoming six from seven.
Billy Mill has finished in the first four home in each of his last seven efforts on the A/W over the last year (3113343) and had two good runs at Ascot in July. Wasn't at his best at Goodwood and Sandown in subsequent efforts, but now down in class and away from the grass, could show himself in a better light if he's not rusty following a 16-week break. Perennial is a lightly raced 4yr old with potential and makes just a fifth start today. He finished 153 in three runs on the Flat for Ed Walker in the summer before a 4-month break and a change of yard was followed by am A/W debut three weeks ago. He ran better than 5th of 7 would suggest, as he took a while to get going and possibly found Chelmsford's 6f a little too quick, as many have in the past. he's had the benefit of a run and steps up in trip on a slightly slower surface and could well improve here.
(1) Palmar Bay, (2) Lattaash & a chance taken on (8) Perennial taken here.
Race 3 @ 5.30...Coul Angel was slowly away on his debut here over 5f a fortnight ago, but was flying once he got going and managed 4th of 10, beaten by less than a length and a half and missing a place by just a head. He should come on for the run and the extra furlong could be handy for him. Macedonian was a good second of fifteen on debut at Newmarket in August and followed that up with a 4th of 12 at Kempton on A/W debut a month later. Both runs came over today's trip and this one has been gelded during his four-week break.
Rebel's Gamble is an interesting debutant representing the trainer and jockey who won this race last year. He was deemed worthy of a 135,000 Gns price tag as a yearling and his brother Nahaar won 6 of 14 at 6/7f, whilst his half-brother Gleneagle Bay finished 15222 in his five races last year, going down narrowly in his last two valuable races. Stardancer was a modest 6th of 11 on debut at Newmarket in early November, but made an good A/W debut a fortnight ago, when 2nd of 9 over today's course and distance, beaten only by an 8/13 fav. A similar run here puts him right in the mix and he's every right to improve for his recent experience.
Race 4 @ 6.00...Brightandbeautiful has finished third and fourth in her two A/W starts to date, both over today's 7f trip, including a third over course and distance in mid-November. She probably wants further than this, but she's running well and this looks a poor race. Whizz By is the only runner in the field with a win to their name and she comes here on a hat-trick after a pair of C&D handicap wins here in October/November. She went up 7lbs for her first win and is up another 5lbs, but I think she still has the potential to improve further and should be the one to beat here.
Empowered Queen has gone pretty well in her three handicap starts to date without ripping too many trees up, finishing 454 in 11/12-runner contests over 6/7f on Tapeta. She was beaten by little more than half a length here at Southwell over 6f last time out, staying on, so the move back to 7f could help. Bantz comes from a yard in decent form and with a good track record here and he was a little unlucky last time out, when initially denied a clear run over 6f at Newcastle before being switched out resulting in his heels being clipped a furlong from home effectively ending his race as he was eased down. An extra furlong and a clearer passage could see a different outcome here.
Bantz misses out, though, as I'm going with (3) Brightandbeautiful, (6) Whizz By & (7) Empowered Queen from this one.
Race 5 @ 6.30...Style Of Life has obvious ability, as demonstrated by her 25122 finishes in September/October, but she has failed to shine in two runs on Tapeta since and needs to bounce back. She has been eased a pound in the ratings, but remains 5lbs higher than her last win, but is now 1lb lower than her Wolverhampton runner-up effort in October. Rapido Girl is 322 from her three A/W runs to date over 6/7f on Tapeta in the last seven weeks and was only beaten by 0.75 lengths behind the 5/2 fav at Newcastle last time out. No reason why she can't/won't place again here.
Bella Kopella hasn't raced over today's trip in any of her last 14 starts over a similar amount of months, but her record on the A/W at this trip reads 212131 and considering she has been consistently outpaced over shorter trips of late, the step back up in trip is both interesting and logical. She should be well prepared as she has been kept quite busy over the last year. Starsong lost her way a little after finishes of 17332 (beaten by a head over C&D in the last of those five) in the first quarter of 2024, but she took advantage of a falling handicap mark to make the frame at Lingfield 12 days ago, beaten by just half a length as a runner-up and was half a length in front of third-placed Ravensbourne who was a 25/1 placer mentioned on this column yesterday.
Style of Life looks the weaker of the four, so I'll go with (2) Rapido Girl, (5) Bella Kopella & (10) Starsong here.
Race 6 @ 7.00...A poor-looking race to finish on, where only three horses make any appeal to me at all, so my 1-2-3 pretty much picks itself...
Autumn Angel has steadily improved on Tapeta over the last six weeks finishing 4321 with decreasing margins of defeat prior to a near-two length win over today's trip at Wolverhampton four days ago. This run of form means she now carries 5lbs more than the rest of the field, but she's clearly the form horse here.
Bernie The Bear was the runner-up in that race on Monday, staying on strongly and with the weight pull in his favour, he could be the main threat/challenge to Autumn Angel's hopes of doubling up. If not, he's always a viable place prospect after making the frame in 8 of 12 over 6f on the A/W.
Piperstown was third in back to back races (here at Southwell and then at Lingfield) in August/September and won here over 5f two starts ago, but failed to shine on New Year's Day when he never really got going in a Newcastle 5f sprint. The step up in trip might help and he could well bounce back, but I doubt he's beating either of the other two.
Piperstown looks a fair way below the other pair, so I'll just take (1) Autumn Angel & (4) Bernie The Bear from this one.
*
All of which gives me...
Leg 1: ((1) Sisterandbrother, (4) Paradoxical & (9) Khangai
Leg 2: (1) Palmar Bay, (2) Lattaash & (8) Perennial
Leg 3: (5) Macedonian, (6) Rebels Gamble & (7) Stardancer
Leg 4: (3) Brightandbeautiful, (6) Whizz By & (7) Empowered Queen
Thursday's racing comes from Ayr, Huntingdon & Newcastle
If you're new to Tix Picks, it's worth taking a moment to review the links in the next section; if you've been before, let's crack on...
Today's meetings, pools and minimum guarantees are as follows, including a £50,000 placepot guarantee at Newcastle...
Let's follow the money and head to Newcastle for six contests on standard tapeta starting with...
Leg 1 @ 1.52...Come On John has finished 13222 in his last five, all on Tapeta and has only gone down by a head, 0.75 lengths and ahead in his last three and looks like the one to beat here on form. even if he is up 2lbs today. Fifty Sent runs for the first time since May, when losing by a nose on the nod and he made the frame here four starts ago and could be of interest on his yard debut for Sam England.
Inspiring Speeches might be winless after 15 starts, but did show some promise in handicaps during 2024, finishing 23522 in a five-race block in August/September. He'll need to improve upon a 4 length defeat last time out, but he's down in weight here. Jujubella is another maiden, having failed to land any of her seven races to date, but since coming racing in the UK, has finished 434, all here at Newcastle over a mile. She was doing her best work late on each time, so the step up to 1m2f might just be the ticket.
This race is there to be won/lost for (2) Come On John, but I'll take (5) Inspiring Speeches & (8) Jujubella as backups.
Leg 2 @ 2.27...Bond Spirit is running pretty well right now, making the first four home in each of his last three starts over 1m4f-1m6f at Wolverhampton, all off a mark of 48. He has been eased a pound in the ratings and if holding his form, should be involved once more today. Busby ended a bit of a lean spell by winning at Southwell over 1m4f a fortnight ago, making all in what was his first run in a visor giving him an 11th career A/W win from 57 starts and with a 42% place strike rate on the A/W is usually a safe placepot pick.
Rubellite has finished 2344 on the tapeta in her last four starts off today's mark and whilst he doesn't win very often, he's usually very much involved in proceedings and there no reason why she can't make the frame today. The 12yo veteran Visitant is another who is often there or thereabouts, despite now being on a winless run of eighteen starts. His recent form has seen him make the frame in four of his last seven and was a half-length runner-up here over 1m2f in August and was also third here over course and distance just three weeks ago on his last run.
It's a modest-looking affair here, from which I'll take (3) Busby, (7) Rubellite & (9) Visitant for my bet builder.
Leg 3 @ 3.02...Lahab hasn't raced too often over today's trip of late, but was a course and distance runner-up last January off a mark 15lbs higher than today and was a runner-up again here (over 7f) two starts ago when only beaten inside the last furlong, so whilst not an obvious candidate could be dangerous off this current mark. Brazilian Rose is an interesting/unexposed type with just five (4 on A/W) starts to date. She won over 7f on debut at Lingfield in August and was third over today's trip on the tapeta at Wolverhampton in September. 5f here was probably too sharp for her, as she went down by just over 2.5 lengths, but the step back up to 6f might suit her.
Spartan Fighter went down by a couple of lengths over track/trip on his latest run, but was third at Chelmsford last month and a course and distance winner here back in October and is a danger here now returned to the same mark as that win. Noble Consort is, however, probably the one to beat despite a 5lb rise in the weights for a made-all course and distance win here just over a fortnight ago after a couple of decent efforts on the tapeta at both Southwell and Wolverhampton. He was a length and three quarters clear here last time out and wasn't really challenged, so could/should have more to give.
Of the four, Lahab is the least likely in my mind, leaving me with (2) Brazilian Rose, (4) Spartan Fighter & (6) Noble Consort.
Leg 4 @ 3.32...Tomorrow Day was in my overnight 1-2-3, but now doesn't run but there are still others to look at from a place perspective at worst, starting with Jimmy Knocker, a lightly raced 94 starts) 4 yr old, who fared well enough on his first crack at 6f in what was a handicap debut at Southwell a fortnight ago. He was, unfortunately, slow away and had to play catch up, but stayed on well in what ended up being a four-length defeat and he should come on for the experience. Yoshimi on the other hand, has 48 races under his belt with a healthy (for this level) 8 wins to his name. He has been better at 7f, but dropped back to today's trip last time out when beaten by three lengths at Wolverhampton and a better start sees him closer today off 1lb lower.
Oriental Prince comes here on a hat-trick, having won his last two, bother here at Newcastle over 5f, the most recent of which was yesterday and he carries no penalty for that success. He tends to stay on well enough, so the step back up to 6f (C&D runner-up in October) shouldn't be an issue. Hurstwood is the only other runner with a win in their recent form lines, but closer inspection shows that only 1 of his 9 career wins have been on the A/W and from 20 efforts, 19 of which have been here at Newcastle.
That said, he has a win and four further places from 17 starts over 6f/7f here, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility that he makes the frame again today, but I prefer (1) Jimmy Knocker, (2) Yoshimi & (5) Oriental Prince here.
Leg 5 @ 4.05...Encircle ran just once for Simon Crisford the best part of a year ago, but showed promise finishing as a one-length runner-up to stable mate Miss Bielsa at Wolverhampton. She now comes back from 342 days off the track to make a yard debut for Rebecca Menzies and will have the very useful 3lb claimer Kaiya Fraser in the saddle. Heavenly Heather was a runner-up here at this class/trip two starts ago, but faded late on when stepped up in class and trip last time out. She's now back down to Class 5 and back at 7f and should put up a better show than LTO.
General Admission was popular Kempton on debut in October, when sent sent off as the 3/1 second favourite and the market support was justified as he was only beaten by the 13/8 fav Yankee Dude who ran him out of it late on to win by 1.75 lengths. The run by General Admission probably sets the benchmark here and a similar effort should take this race. The third placed horse was a head behind him and he won a 16-runner maiden next time out. Lord Capulet is a half-brother to dual Group 1 winner Rosallion and whilst I'm not suggesting he's going to be that good, it is worth noting. He has raced just once to date and faded away at Redcar on soft ground back in November. This surface should be a little easier to run on, he should come on for the run and it's hard to ignore his breeding.
On results alone, I have to take (4) Encircle and (7) General Admission, but I'm also going to take a chance on the potential of (10) Lord Capulet. I've a feeling that Encircle might well go off at a big price and might well be worth a small (and I mean small!) E/W punt.
Leg 6 @ 4.40...Streak Lightning has finished third in each of his last two starts, both here over course and distance last month and he runs off the same mark as when scoring over track/trip back in September. Finn Ironside had a decent second half to 2024 finishing 213434 in his last six outings. The final two runs in that sequence were over today's course and distance, beaten by 2.5 and 3 lengths respectively. A slight 1lb drop in weight might help slightly and he should be there or thereabouts today.
Angel Of Antrim looks the one to beat, though, based on her last two efforts; a pair of 5-length wins over course and distance five and twelve days ago. Another similar effort should easily be enough here and she's 6lb well in under a penalty. Ravensbourne completes my shortlist despite being a 14-race (10 on A/W) maiden for four different trainers. Her current mark of 53 (down from70 a year ago) is probably more suitable for her and she comes here off the back of a pair of third placed finishes at Lingfield, the best of which was a one-length defeat 11 days ago on her latest yard debut off today's mark.
(6) Angel Of Antrim is my clear pick here and I've little to separate the other trio if truth be told, but I'll take (4) Streak Lightning and (5) Finn Ironside for backup.
*
All of which gives me...
Leg 1: (2) Come On John, (5) Inspiring Speeches & (8) Jujubella
Tuesday's racing comes from Lingfield, Punchestown, Uttoxeter & Warwick.
If you're new to Tix Picks, it's worth taking a moment to review the links in the next section; if you've been before, let's crack on...
Today's meetings, pools and minimum guarantees are as follows, including a £50,000 placepot guarantee at Lingfield...
I'm not over keen on the Lingfield A/W card, so we'll stay on the jumps, from which the Uttoxeter card looks the better quality. So we'll take in six races from there on good to soft ground, starting off with...
Race 1 @ 12.30...Andy Amo has made a reasonable start to hurdling life, finishing 2nd of 10 and 4th of 12, both at Ffos Las and the way he stayed over 2m6f on debut suggests that the extra distance here might suit him, as might slightly quicker ground than LTO. Grand Geste didn't rip up any trees in two bumpers and had a couple of indifferent efforts over hurdles before the penny started to drop and he has been 2nd of 14, beaten by half a length over 2m4f and a staying on 3rd of 10 over 3m since. That was four weeks ago at Haydock and a similar run makes him dangerous here.
Pike Road has only tackled hurdles once, but stayed on to finish 2nd of 12 over 3m on that debut run and could well improve for having had the run. A similar effort in a poor looking race could put him in the frame again, but the one to beat here is possibly/probably Star Of Diamonds who won a 3m Irish PTP at Quakerstown nine months ago and didn't run again until his debut under Rules at Haydock four weeks ago, where he ended up 4th of 10 over 3m½f on soft ground, losing two places late on (finishing a head behind Grand Geste) and he'd be entitled to come on for the run.
Of these four, I like Andy Amo least, so I'll go with (3) Grand Geste, (4) Pike Road & (6) Star Of Diamonds in the opener.
Race 2 @ 1.00...Benassi has been a bit of a mixed bag so far in nine starts over hurdles, making the frame in six of them, including two wins, but also failing to complete twice and a 40 length defeat. On the evidence of his last run, though, when second of nine at Leicester, it's hard to ignore his claims. I just hope he's on a good day. El Granjero hasn't quite hit the levels of last season where he was 22211 over hurdles and he doesn't seem to have seen 2m6f/2m7f out in both starts this term. He's down in the weights to just 4lbs higher than his last, wears cheekpieces for the first time and the drop in trip should also help a horse with clear ability at this level.
Fresh Speculation got off the mark at the seventh attempt over hurdles at Ffos Las last month over this trip, but he had made the frame in four of his previous five starts so he's progressing nicely. This is tougher up in class and weight, but he's going the right direction. Haarar had a spell where he finished 2211 over hurdles earlier this year and shrpened up for the winter by wining over 1m6f at Redcar on the flat in early November and followed that up with a runner-up finish at Haydock four weeks ago despite being badly hampered by a loose horse.
On any given day, I'd be more than happy to put any of these forward as a potential placer, but I only want to take three and El Granjero will miss out based on recent form, even though the potential is there, leaving me with (2) Benassi, (6) Fresh Speculation & (7) Haarar.
Race 3 @ 1.30...Ithaka was a winner at Market Rasen two starts ago, having made the frame in his two previous starts. 3m1½f at Catterick off a higher mark probably over stretched him last time, so the drop back to 3m could help him back into the frame at what might be a nice price. Just Chasing May won here over 2m4f back in mid-June prior to a break of over four months. Since returning in late October, he has made the frame in all three starts and was third of eight over 2m7f on soft ground last time out and should go well again off the same mark.
Twp Stori is 321251 over hurdles in 2024 with the worst result being a reasonable 5th of 14 here at Uttoxeter over an inadequately short 2m after a break of nearly six months, which he used as a stepping stone to a win over 2m7f on soft ground at Lingfield last time out and a 5lb rise might stop stop him being involved again. All Under Control has taken a while to get going over hurdles, failing to even make the frame in any of her first six starts with only one (10 length) defeat of less than 37 lengths! She then somehow put all that behind her as she battled gamely to win by half a length at Fontwell three weeks ago. This tougher and she's up in weight and trip.
I'm not sure that All Under Control can go well twice in a row based on her previous runs, so I'm going with (5) Ithaka (who might be a nice E/W bet with bookies paying four places), (6) Just Chasing May & (9) Twp Stori here.
Race 4 @ 2.00...Eaton Anne finished 322 in his first three efforts over hurdles but was a very disappointing last of four beaten by 25 lengths at Plumpton on his last start when sent off as the Evens favourite on his handicap debut. It's too soon to write him off based on his three previous runs and he has had a wind op since that last run. Port Or Starboard has made the frame in 12 of 22 career starts, which is what you want from a placepot pick and his form in 2023 read 621333233 before he took a year off. His first run of 2024 was three weeks ago here at Uttoxeter when not disgraced in a 9 length defeat. He's entitled to come on for the run and is now rated at 3lbs lower than his last win and 5lbs lower than this time last year.
Dickens made his own seasonal reappearance after an even longer break of 530 days to finish a very creditable 5th of 14 at Chepstow three months ago travelling strongly for much of the contest he was only eventually beaten by just over five lengths and he too should benefit for the outing. Oneforthefairgreen was second of eight at Leicester six weeks ago, beaten by just over two lengths off the back of a five month break, but didn't seem suited by the step up to 2m2½f at Exeter last time out and now reverts back to 2m, whilst wearing a visor for the first time.
I don't think there's much between the four I've shortlisted, but I need to omit one and the unlucky horse is going to be Dickens, leaving me with (2) Eaton Anne, (4) Port or Starboard & (9) Oneforthefairgreen.
Race 5 @ 2.30...Grove Road is proving to be a better hurdler than we was over fences, finishing 114 in his last three, although that last effort wasn't great whe he faded from contention in the final quarter mile on his way to a 33 length defeat as 4th of 10. That said, he's now 5lbs lower, 2½f back in trip and was going well prior to LTO, so he might not be out of this completely, if he can transfer some of that recent form back to the bigger obstacles. Jessie Lightfoot has had a good year over fences so far, finishing in the frame in seven (two wins) of her ten starts. I'm happy to overlok her latest effort when racing from out of the handicap at Class 3 and the drop back to Class 5 should show her in a better light.
Ali Star Bert gets good to soft or softer ground, gets 2m7f to 3m3f readily and has three wins and four runner-up finishes from his last eleven starts. He's a former course and distance winner, who runs off the same mark as his last win and had been the runner-up in two of his last three. The only potential fly in the ointment is that he has failed to complete the race in three of those four unplaced runs in his last eleven starts, which is why he might be a double-digit price at the off. Croagh Patrick has plenty of experience under his belt and has made the frame in 16 of 34 over fences and comes here off the back of a runner-up finish and a win at Carlisle already this month, both at 3m2f and both on soft ground. He's up 8lbs for that recent win, but the drop back in trip and the slightly easier ground should both help him remain in contention.
My main concern from the four-runner shortlist is that Grove Road hasn't got a great record over fences, so I'll set him aside and take (5) Jessie Lightfoot, (6) Ali Star Bert & (10) Croagh Patrick.
Race 6 @ 3.05...I'm Ravenous finished 231 in his last three over hurdles prior to making all on both his handicap and chase debut where he hung on well to win by half a length. He followed that up by finishing second at Doncaster next/last time out and should be in the mix once more. Knockanore comes here off the back of two good runs where he was second of ten over 2m5f at Southwell before winning here by sixteen lengths over course and distance eleven days ago and although considerably up in weight does look the one to beat today.
Accidental Legend is interesting on chase debut, having made the frame in 8 of 17 over hurdles, winning five times. He looked like he needed the run three weeks ago when 6th of 8 here over 2m7½f, but his prior form had read 12221 and if taking to fences could go well here, although an opening mark of 113 is 7lbs higher than his last hurdles win and leaves little room for error. Lime Drop, on the other hand has nine chases under her belt, mainly in small fields and running to a consistent level finishing 223225213. She won here over 2m two starts ago, but now steps back up to 2m4f.
In card order, I really want (1) I'm Ravenous & (3) Knockanore on my tickets, but it's then a choice between the other pair and I think I might just marginally prefer the consistency of Lime Drop over the inexperience of Accidental Legend, but I think I'll leave both out.
*
All of which gives me...
Leg 1: (3) Grand Geste, (4) Pike Road & (6) Star Of Diamonds
Leg 2: (2) Benassi, (6) Fresh Speculation & (7) Haarar
Leg 3: (5) Ithaka, (6) Just Chasing May & (9) Twp Stori
Leg 4: (2) Eaton Anne, (4) Port or Starboard & (9) Oneforthefairgreen
Leg 5: (5) Jessie Lightfoot, (6) Ali Star Bert & (10) Croagh Patrick
Leg 6: (1) I'm Ravenous & (3) Knockanore
...and here's how I'd play them, whilst trying to stay close to a nominal £20 total stake...
And that's Tix Picks done for 2024, I'll be back with you all on Thursday with the first column of 2025.
Monday's racing comes from Haydock, Taunton & Wolverhampton.
If you're new to Tix Picks, it's worth taking a moment to review the links in the next section; if you've been before, let's crack on...
Today's meetings, pools and minimum guarantees are as follows, including a £50,000 placepot guarantee at Haydock...
The biggest guarantee is at Haydock, where the ground is unsurprisingly soft/heavy after the amount of rain we've had in the North West, so we'll tread carefully for our six races, starting with...
Leg 1 @ 12.30...Tiger Jet is a former course and distance winner who returns from a three month break, but that's not a real concern, as he won at Cartmel on heavy ground in August after more than five months off. City Derby won four times in the summer, including three times on soft ground and although not in the same form of late, could be involved down in weight and back on slower ground.
Bushypark probably needed the run when pulled up last time out, but returns to a venue where he is 2 from over C&D and has also won at 2m7f.
Shaped as though he needed his reappearance run and he has an excellent record here. Lady In The Park returns to hurdling, where she is 31225, having struggled over fences this year. She runs off the same mark as a runner-up finish at Ayr in March and could/should go well here and has won on soft ground.
Schalke seemed to have stalled with a series of poor efforts for his former trainer, but a switch of yard has seen him make the frame in both starts for his new handlers, finishing third and then second at Bangor, both on soft ground. He's still 6lbs below his last winning mark from two years ago and it could well be his turn today.
I'll take (3) City Derby, (5) Lady In The Park & (6) Schalke from this one.
Leg 2 @ 1.00...This initially looks like a two-horse race between the top two on the card/weights.
(1) Glynn Brae won a 2m soft ground bumper on debut and then a 2m½f heavy ground hurdle before struggling at Aintree last month when fading badly late on over 2m4f on good ground. Slower ground and a shorter trip should be beneficial to him today. (2) Indeevar Bleu has also won two of his career starts and also won a 2m soft ground bumper on debut. Since that win he has raced just twice in over 21 months, but came back from 393 days off to win comfortably over 1m7½f on heavy ground at Leicester four weeks ago at this grade.
(3) Desert Halo is probably the best of the rest and although he was an 80/1 runner-up last time out, he's still a maiden after five starts and steps up in trip here, so I'll just stick with the top two on the card.
Leg 3 @ 1.30...Idalko Bihoue was a seven length winner on his second effort over fences when scoring at Cheltenham at this class/trip in October of 2023. he hasn't quite been art the same level in three runs since, but was 5th of 12 in a Grade 2 back at HQ in April but does drop in class here and is now only 3lbs higher than that last win. Classic Maestro has only failed to finish in the first two on two occasions from twelve starts, winning six times. He has already comfortably won three races this month, making all and looks the one to beat.
The Flier Begley needs to bounce back from a couple of indifferent efforts since landing back to back handicap in October at Warwick & Carlisle. He's down a couple of pounds here, so only 3lbs higher than his last win and could be a place contender. Trac probably needed the run after seven months off when last home of six at Kelso last month. The good to soft ground might also have been a little 'quick' for him too, as he was 214411 on soft/heavy last season after another modest comeback effort, so if this season goes the same way, he should be involved.
I'm least keen on The Flier Begley from my shortlist, so I'm going with (1) Idalko Bihoue, (2) Classic Maestro & (6) Trac here.
Leg 4 @ 2.00...Last year's runner-up Gold Emery was on my overnight four-runner shortlist, but he was withdrawn this morning, taking me down to the following three...
Galassian makes a chase debut after progressing nicely over hurdles culminating in a soft ground win at Bangor earlier this month. he might not have tackled a fence under Rules but has won a 3m PTP race. Wal Bucks has already had three cracks at the bigger obstacles, improving each time from 6th of 9 (11 lengths down) on debut in May to 3rd of 12 (4.5L) at Ayr last month to 2nd of 10 beaten by just a neck at Wetherby earlier this month over this trip on soft ground and a similar run puts him right in the mix.
Cream Of The West was 3121 over hurdles on soft/heavy ground in his first four starts last season and was a respectable 6th of 14 on chase debut at Hexham 19 days ago, considering the 2m4f was probably too short for him and also that he'd not raced for over eight months. Up in trip and with the benefit of a run, he could/should be involved here.
He's the weaker option of the three and he'd have been behind Gold Emery in my thoughts, too, so I'll just go with (2) Galassian & (5) Wal Bucks here.
Leg 5 @ 2.35...Smart Decision was a comfortable winner at 5/1 on his debut at Doncaster a month ago when staying on well under today's jockey. He seemed to have plenty left in the tank and on that run could be the one to beat, but Eagles Reprieve also won on debut recently, albeit a junior bumper at Wetherby, when sent off at 10/1 on soft ground.
The above pair are the two I'd want from those with a run under their belts as L'Air Du Large was last home of four on a bumper despite being the 7/4 fav and Mystical Martika was only 5th of 9, sixteen lengths down on her bumper run at Wetherby recently.
Of the pair yet to race, the interesting one has to be Itstonitejosephine. We've got the de Boinville/Henderson partnership with a filly by Irish Derby winner Jack Hobbs out of an unraced dam related to dual Grade 1 hurdle winner L'Ami Serge and when you put all of that together, she's difficult to ignore.
I'll take three here ie (2) Smart Decision, (3) Eagles Reprieve & (6) Itstonitejosephine.
Leg 6 @ 3.10...The Big Breakaway isn't the horse of two seasons ago when a decent Class 1/2 handicapper, but was second of ten at Ascot last time out and whilst beaten by some 31 lengths, was himself 20 lengths clear of the third placed horse and he's down two pounds here. Gaboriot has made the frame in 10 of 16 over fences, winning five times at trips of 3m to 4m½f and he's 4 from 5 beyond 3m. Things didn't go to plan last time out when a bad mistake and getting hampered later on contributed to him being 6th of 14, but the step up in trip should suit.
Montgomery won three on the bounce on soft/heavy ground last spring and although probably needing the run after 231 days off, was only beaten by six lengths last time out and his yard have won this race in three of the last seven renewals, including last season. The Two Amigos won the Welsh Grand National just over two years ago, but has only raced twice since. He was 7th of 17 in the Midlands National in March 2023 before a 627-day absence. he returned to action here at Haydock four weeks ago and went well for some way before weakening badly and was pulled up before the last.
Fantastikas was a 19-length third in this race last year off a mark 4lbs higher than today and he comes here off the back of a decent 3rd of 9 over 3m at Uttoxeter three weeks ago. Of this quintet, I'm going to put (2) Gaboriot, (3) Montgomery & (5) Fantastikas on my Tix bet builder.
*
All of which gives me...
Leg 1: (3) City Derby, (5) Lady In The Park & (6) Schalke
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