Welcome to Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners, the place to go for weekend best bets and spot plays from veteran handicapper and tournament-play pioneer Noel Michaels. Check back every week for a couple of highlighted selections designed to help you cash a few bets and make some money.

Noel's selections have been featured just about everywhere horse racing picks can be found, including in print in the Daily Racing Form, The HorsePlayer Magazine and American Turf Monthly, online at DRF.com, Twinspires.com and USRacing.com, from the paddock on-track at Arlington International Racecourse, and on the air on HRTV, TVG, NYC OTB Extra, NYRA's Talking Horses, and on broadcast TV on WAVE-3 Louisville, ABC KOLO-8 in Reno, Nevada, and channel 72 Long Island Cablevision.

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Six Beginner Betting Tools

1. Start simple with an easy guide for how to bet on horse racing.
2. Not sure what that word means? Horse racing terminology is a language of its own. Allow us translate for you
3. What the heck is a speed figure? This beginner’s guide to speed figures has everything you need to know.
4. Betting on horse racing can be intimidating. Team ABR put together some Dos and Don’ts for the new fan getting started betting on racing.
5. We all make mistakes when it comes to betting on horse racing, here are eight lessons learned from experience.
6. Figure out how much each bet will cost in advance with our Gambling Calculator, presented by NYRA Bets.

The weekend racing fans and horseplayers wait for all year for is here. The Breeders’ Cup World Championships on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 3-4 at Santa Anita Park will feature the international equine and human stars of horse racing in 14 races over two days. The action kicks off on Friday with five races for 2-year-olds featuring the $2 million FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. Saturday’s feature is the $6 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Saturday program is also headlined by many other divisional main events, not the least of which is the $2 million Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, which this year has drawn one of the deepest and best fields in the history of the race.

For this weekend’s winners, let’s focus on Breeders’ Cup best bets with picks for the Juvenile on Friday and the Filly and Mare Turf on Saturday. If we can catch these two races, we should be well on our way to a profitable Breeders’ Cup weekend at Santa Anita. Best of luck and enjoy racing’s championship days.

Friday, Nov. 3

Santa Anita Park, Race 8, $2,000,000 FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile presented by TAA, post time 7 p.m. ET

This year’s edition of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile is shaping up to be a standout running of the race that usually crowns the 2-year-old champion. Ten horses are set to go 1 1/16 miles on the main track, and every horse with a legitimate claim to the 2-year-old championship is in the field, plus one foreign invader (another was scratched earlier in the week). As good as many of these horses are, this year’s Juvenile seems like a top-heavy race that will come down to a battle between the principal contenders, #10 Muth, #6 Locked, and #4 Timberlake, representing trainers Bob Baffert, Todd Pletcher, and Brad Cox, respectively. Even though those three are the favorites, you can still make a lot of money in this race if you key on only those three and come up with the correct winner amongst that trio. The winner is likely to be Muth, a $2 million 2-year-old-in-training purchase earlier this year that seems to have panned out in a big way. Muth was good and precocious in two sprints to begin his career, but we really saw what the future is for Muth last time when he stretched out to effortlessly cruise to a big win in the Grade 1 American Pharoah Stakes at this track and distance. Baffert owns five past wins in the Juvenile and Muth is ready to take on all comers on his home track as a horse that apparently will run all day. Jockey Juan Hernandez never had to step on the gas pedal aboard Muth in the American Pharoah, and one gets the impression there is much more stamina if required on Saturday. Muth might need that extra gear because a couple of these shippers will be tough customers. Pletcher’s Locked is a real-deal-looking horse with two route wins including last time in the Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity at Keeneland, and Cox’s Timberlake stretched out to a mile for the first time last time and won the Grade 1 Champagne Stakes at Belmont at the Big A by 4 ¼ lengths.

The Play: Bet big on #10 Muth (4-1) to win, and back it up with three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes along with #4 Timberlake (4-1) and #6 Locked (7-2).

Saturday, Nov. 4

Santa Anita Park, Race 4, $2,000,000 Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, post time 3:10 p.m. ET

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A field of 12 fillies and mares are set to go 1 ¼ miles on the turf with a start on the downhill portion of the Santa Anita turf course, and this year’s Filly and Mare Turf field is probably the strongest in the history of the race. This may not be a “glamour” Breeders’ Cup division, but it will be a headline-caliber race. Two groups of horses have dominated this race for more than a decade – foreign invaders and horses trained by Chad Brown – and we will concentrate our bets on starters from those two groups. Trainers Charlie Appleby, representing Godolphin, and Aidan O’Brien, representing Coolmore, will renew their global rivalry with Appleby sending out E. P. Taylor Stakes runner-up and three-time group/graded stakes winner #3 With the Moonlight, and O’Brien sending out #2 Warm Heart, who won back-to-back Group 1 races in Europe last summer. Warm Heart is an obvious horse in this race, will be difficult to beat, and must be included in all exotics, but the value bet of the day is With the Moonlight, who is an unfathomable 20-1 overlay on the morning line based on her loss on good turf to #8 Fev Rover in the E. P. Taylor and the loss before which came on soft turf in England. With the Moonlight appears to be a horse that “likes to hear her feet rattle” on firm turf, and she’ll get that kind of ground Saturday at Santa Anita. Chad Brown’s best chance this year is with #1 In Italian, a fast and highly accomplished front-runner who has finished first or second in seven straight Grade 1 races. She beat With the Moonlight in April, but in the Breeders’ Cup she is likely to have her hands full up front fending off both Fev Rover and #11 Lumiere Rock. Perhaps In Italian will do what In Italian does and hold on at least for a spot in the money. The final horse that must be mentioned is the other possible favorite along with Warm Heart, and that’s #6 Inspiral. Inspiral is a multiple Group 1 winner and probably the most accomplished horse in the race, but she is a one-mile specialist who is being asked to try this 1 ¼-mile distance for the first time in a spot that has come up awfully strong. You’ve gotta take a stand somewhere, and we’ll take a stand against the favorite here.

The Play:  Bet to win on #3 With the Moonlight (20-1) and play three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes using With the Moonlight along with #1 In Italian (4-1), and #2 Warm Heart (3-1).