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.

Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners is brought to you by Horseplayers.com, the official online qualifying site of the Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) and National Horseplayers Championship (NHC). Horseplayers.com offers low-cost feeders every day and BCBC and NHC qualifiers every weekend, and it’s the only site where you can qualify for the $1.25 million BCBC. It’s free to sign up – click here to get information about registering and how to enter contests.

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.

Saturday, June 24

The month of June has blown by, and summer is officially here. Several tracks are currently gearing up for next week’s big holiday weekend leading up to the Fourth of July. This weekend, some of the best racing and wagering to be found will be at Belmont Park, which has an excellent 10-race card in store as the clock for New York racing clicks closer and closer to the start of the Saratoga meet in mid-July. Our focus this Saturday will be on a pair of turf races with good fields where the right plays should be able to yield a tidy profit.

Belmont Park, Race 5, starter allowance, 3:09 p.m. ET

Saturday’s fifth race is a starter allowance grass sprint race going six furlongs on the inner turf that drew a 10-horse field with nine betting interests. The morning-line favorite is No. 1 entry of #1 Dont Let Me Down, and #1a My Sea Cottage. While My Sea Cottage may be entered at a distance too short, the horse to beat in the race looks like Dont Let Me Down, who evidently was always meant to be a turf sprinter but had to wait for turf season to begin again in order to excel. He did just that two races ago when he exploded away from maidens to win by 6 1/4 lengths. Toss out the off-the-turf loss last time and bet him back on the grass at this logical class level. If you do like My Sea Cottage, you also get him for free as a part of the entry. The horse in the field with the best chance at an upset is #5 Disarmed who got hooked in a speed duel, KO’d his rival, and yielded to a closer but ran on for second when stretched to seven furlongs last time out. He won the race before that on dirt at Saturday’s six-furlong distance, which seems preferable, and is in tip-top form now on both turf and dirt and yet still a bargain at 8-1 odds on the morning line. When making a win bet in this race, take the tote board into account because Disarmed is likely to be the value.

The Play: Bet #5 Disarmed (8-1) to win and play him in exacta boxes with the entry of #1 Dont Let Me Down and #1a My Sea Cottage (2-1).

Belmont Park, Race 6, $150,000 Wild Applause Stakes, 3:41 p.m. ET

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Saturday’s feature race is the Wild Applause Stakes, which drew a field of eight 3-year-old fillies set to go one mile on the turf. Just like so many grass features at Belmont Park, this race is likely to come down to a battle between trainer Christophe Clement with his #8 Breath Away versus Chad Brown with his uncoupled entry of #2 Tax Implications and #3 Liguria. The field is actually loaded with promising 3-year-old turfers, but the Clement and Brown trio appear to stand out above the others. Breath Away has never been worse than second in four career races and has two wins and a second in three turf starts so far, including a victory in the $100,000 Sanibel Island Stakes on April 1 at Gulfstream Park and a runner-up finish in the $100,000 Hilltop Stakes at Pimlico on May 19. Her speed figures earned in those races is well above the other fillies in this field. Brown-trained Liguria, the winner of the Grade 3 Jimmy Durante Stakes last December at Del Mar, finished fifth but lost by only 1 ½ lengths last time out in the Grade 2 Edgewood Stakes Presented by Forcht Bank on May 5 at Churchill Downs off a five-month layoff. She now finds herself in what looks like an easier spot Saturday. Brown’s #2 Tax Implications lacks a prep race but had defeated Liguria by over six lengths when both were maidens last September at Monmouth Park. Irad Ortiz Jr. gets the mount on Liguria while Manny Franco is aboard Tax Implications in the Wild Applause.

The Play:  Bet #8 Breath Away (2-1) to win and box her in the exacta with #3 Liguria (7-2). Play a three-horse trifecta box adding in #2 Tax Implications (3-1) to your tickets.