question How do you lot actually pick a runner before the jump?

Been trying to get a bit more into the races lately and I feel like half the time I'm just staring at the form guide pretending I know what I'm looking at lol.

I get the obvious stuff like recent runs, barrier, track condition, jockey change and all that, but then I see people talking about speed maps, class drops, sectionals, stable intent etc and I start thinking maybe I'm missing the main stuff.

So for the regular punters in here, what do you actually look at first? Do you have a rough checklist before you back one, or is it more of a gut feel after you've been watching it for years?

Keen to hear how you narrow a race down without doing your head in. Even just a basic way to read a Saturday card properly would help heaps. Cheers fellas.

I used to drown in the guide too. Best thing I did was stop trying to rate every single line and just watch replays first, then do a quick map after. If one needs everything to go right from a sticky draw I bin it straight away. Sectionals are useful but heaps of blokes use them to talk themselves into bets they already wanted.