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.

Star horses are competing in almost every division this weekend at Belmont at the Big A, Keeneland, and Santa Anita Park as Breeders’ Cup hopefuls have their final tune-ups and the fields begin to take shape for the various World Championships races scheduled for Nov. 3-4 at Santa Anita Park. One of the Breeders’ Cup races that perhaps doesn’t get talked about as much as the others is the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint, which always stands out as one of the most wide-open and unpredictable races run on Breeders’ Cup weekend. Key Turf Sprint prep races are being held at both Belmont at the Big A and Keeneland on Saturday with the runnings of the Belmont Turf Sprint Stakes and the Woodford Stakes Presented by FanDuel.

These races are unlikely to capture the headlines on a weekend so overloaded with important stakes races, but they quietly might be the very best betting races to be run this Saturday. Let’s take a closer look at this weekend’s important turf sprint stakes, and then read on for another selection for last weekend’s postponed Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes, which has been rescheduled as this Saturday’s fourth race at Belmont at the Big A. Best of luck and enjoy what figures to be a thrilling day of racing and wagering coast to coast this Saturday.

Saturday, Oct. 7

Belmont at the Big A, Race 6, $200,000 Belmont Turf Sprint Stakes, 2:44 p.m. ET

The Grade 3 Belmont Turf Sprint Stakes has drawn a full field of 12 runners ready to go six furlongs, and the pace may be a factor as there is not as much legitimate turf sprint speed entered as you would expect in a race like this. Plus, Aqueduct’s turf has been playing favorably to horses on or close to the pace. Add it up and it’s probably better to bet some horses with some amount of early zip. #11 Dancing Buck has speed to lead, or at least tactical speed to keep him up on the pace all the way. He will have to turn the tables on some of these same horses who beat him last time out in Saratoga’s Harvey Pack Stakes, but he needed that race in his first time back off a nine-month layoff and will benefit from that effort in his second start since the break. He was routinely running efforts good enough to beat his Saturday opponents last year, including a five-length win in this very same race in 2022, when he went wire-to-wire. #7 Today’s Flavor and #12 Nothing Better finished a head apart when first and second in a tough Saratoga turf sprint last time out. For Today’s Flavor the race was a standout first-ever outing on the turf, and for Nothing Better the race marked a solid return to the kind of form that resulted in him finishing in the exacta in seven races in a row from August 2022 through May 2023.

The Play: Bet to win on #11 Dancing Buck (6-1) and use him in three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes along with #7 Today’s Flavor (8-1) and #12 Nothing Better (10-1).

Keeneland, Race 6, $350,000 Woodford Stakes Presented by FanDuel, 3:40 p.m. ET

Kaufymaker (Coady Photography)

On a weekend at Keeneland that features a multitude of important stakes races, it would be easy for a race like the Woodford Stakes to fall through the cracks, but this 5 ½-furlong turf sprint has drawn a full field of 12 contenders and ranks among Saturday’s best betting races. Why? Because almost every horse in the field is a contender – there are no stick-out favorites in the field, and horseplayers can pretty much make a case for just about any of the entrants. That means if you simply come up with the right horse(s), you should get paid nicely. The right horse in the Woodford for me is #9 Kaufymaker, a filly facing the boys for turf sprint ace trainer Wesley Ward. Kaufymaker has a history of performing well versus her male counterparts, having finished third in the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint and then winning an allowance race versus males at Keeneland during the fall meet a year ago. She comes into this race off back-to-back wins, including a fast wire-to-wire score at Saratoga last time. She’s gifted enough as a speedster to go to the front and lead all the way, but she’s also shown the ability to rate in her career if the situation calls for it on Saturday. As mentioned above, almost all the horses in the field have the ability to win this race or hit the exacta on their best day, but the horse with the most consistency out of that group in the field is clearly #8 Our Shot, who has been no worse than third by a neck in his four recent turf sprints, each with strong speed figures, including a win at Keeneland last spring and a win at this distance at Saratoga.

The Play:  Bet #9 Kaufymaker (12-1) to win and play an exacta box with #8 Our Shot (9-2).

Weekend Winner postponed from last week:

Belmont at the Big A, Race 4, $500,000 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes, post time 1:40 p.m. ET

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The 2023 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic has drawn a field of eight older horses set to go 1 ½ miles on the grass as a prep for the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf. The headline runner in the field, favorite, and horse to beat is the defending 2022 Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf champion #4 Rebel’s Romance, who runs for the Godolphin connections of trainer Charlie Appleby and jockey William Buick. Godolphin, Appleby, and Buick have campaigned lethal foreign invaders the last several years in important Grade 1 races all over the world, including the Breeders’ Cup. True, perhaps Rebel’s Romance has not had the kind of season in 2023 his connections had hoped for, with only a seventh-place finish in Dubai and a DNF when he clipped heels and lost the rider last time in the Grade 2 Bowling Green Stakes on his dance card so far. Nevertheless, although we will never know what would have happened in the Bowing Green if he had finished, it certainly looked like he was absolutely loaded when buried in traffic and definitely would have been tough to hold off had he gotten through cleanly. He has time to finish the year strong in this race and in the Breeders’ Cup, he outclasses this field, and you can count on these connections to send horses to the States that are fit and ready to win Grade 1 races. For the exotics, the red-hot #5 Pioneering Spirit and #6 Solider Rising, who has been knocking on the door in tough turf spots much of the year, are the best horses to use along with the favorite. Pioneering Spirit has won five of his last six with the lone loss being a third in the Grade 1 Resorts World Casino Sword Dancer Stakes. Solder Rising was second in the Sword Dancer, second in the Grade 1 Man o’ War Stakes, second in the Grade 1 Resorts World Casino Manhattan Stakes, and got wiped out in his loss in the Bowling Green when Rebel’s Romance lost the rider.

The Play: Bet to win on #4 Rebel’s Romance (9-5) and key him on top of #6 Solider Rising (5-1) and #5 Pioneering Spirit (8-1) in exactas and trifectas.