How to create an Xpath in a tricky section of document (for me) for the purpose of using with Selenium Basic in VBA - selenium

Question

OK, so I mentioned Selenium Basic as that is the use of the XPath and I believe Selenium Basic uses Selenium version 2 so maybe it won't be able to understand some/all answers that might require the latest Selenium. But someone might take that into account if necessary.
There are dynamic classes at play here.
Criteria for selection.
1. Class starting with 'NextToJump__eventWrapper' (the outer one) must be used.
2. Class starting with 'NextToJump__venue' must contain text = 'Ballarat'
3. Class starting with 'NextToJump__race' (and/or span) must contain text = 'Race 2'
I need to be able to click on the <a> tag that contains Points 2 and 3.
The best that I've been able to do (and checked) using ChroPath in Chrome Devtools is...
//div[starts-with(#class,'NextToJump__eventWrapper')]//descendant::*[contains(text(),'Ballarat')]
But note that there are 2 cases of Point 2 in the HTML but only 1 case that satisfies Points 2 and 3.
Thanks
<div class="NextToJump__eventWrapper--13zZJ">
<div>
<div class="NextToJump__raceEvent--bfMON" data-testid="next-to-jump-item">
<a class="Link__link--9x4YY" href="/racing-betting/greyhound-racing/crayford-am/20200708/race-1-1801951-58544404">
<div class="NextToJump__iconWrapper--1yG60"></div>
<div class="NextToJump__eventDetail--CUzdX">
<div class="NextToJump__venue--1jwWA">Ballarat</div>
<div class="NextToJump__race--3JydR"><span>Race 1</span></div>
</div>
<div class="NextToJump__countdown--EG8mR"><span class="Countdown__countdown--4vRpD Countdown__imminent--2yc2K">52s</span></div>
</a>
</div>
<div class="NextToJump__raceEvent--bfMON" data-testid="next-to-jump-item">
<a class="Link__link--9x4YY active" href="/racing-betting/greyhound-racing/rockhampton/20200708/race-4-1799474-58466521" aria-current="page">
<div class="NextToJump__iconWrapper--1yG60"></div>
<div class="NextToJump__eventDetail--CUzdX">
<div class="NextToJump__venue--1jwWA">Rockhampton</div>
<div class="NextToJump__race--3JydR"><span>Race 4</span></div>
</div>
<div class="NextToJump__countdown--EG8mR"><span class="Countdown__countdown--4vRpD Countdown__imminent--2yc2K">2m 52s</span></div>
</a>
</div>
<div class="NextToJump__raceEvent--bfMON" data-testid="next-to-jump-item">
<a class="Link__link--9x4YY" href="/racing-betting/greyhound-racing/ballarat/20200708/race-4-1799454-58465201">
<div class="NextToJump__iconWrapper--1yG60"></div>
<div class="NextToJump__eventDetail--CUzdX">
<div class="NextToJump__venue--1jwWA">Ballarat</div>
<div class="NextToJump__race--3JydR"><span>Race 2</span></div>
</div>
<div class="NextToJump__countdown--EG8mR"><span class="Countdown__countdown--4vRpD Countdown__imminent--2yc2K">5m 52s</span></div>
</a>
</div>
</div>
</div>

Answer 1

The xpath expression you need to use to select your target <a> tag is long and convoluted, but that's life....
[formatted for ease of reading, but you can use that in one line]
//a
[ancestor::div[starts-with(#class,'NextToJump__eventWrapper')]]
[.//div[.="Ballarat"]
[starts-with(#class,'NextToJump__venue-')]
[./following-sibling::div[.="Race 2"]
[starts-with(#class,'NextToJump__race-')]
]
]
Edit:
In "plain English":
Find an <a> node which meets ALL these conditions (i) has an ancestor (not a parent) node which is a <div>, which <div> has a class attribute with an attribute name which starts with NextToJump__eventWrapper; and (ii) it has <div>descendant (not just a child) node, which has Ballarat as a text node AND which has a class attribute with an attribute name which starts with NextToJump__venue-, where that <div>descendant itself has a following sibling which is a <div> which itself has a Race 2 text node AND which has a class attribute with an attribute name which starts with NextToJump__race-...
Yes, the word "plain" doesn't really fit here, but that's the closest I could get. I like xpath, and it's very powerful, but sometimes it's very hard to follow... As an aside, it would have been somewhat less cryptic if xquery was used instead of straight xpath.