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, Nov. 11

Life after the Breeders’ Cup begins this weekend as things cool down and horseplayers settle into the rhythm of fall racing at the places where fall racing has the most to offer such as Churchill Downs, Del Mar, and Aqueduct. It is at The Big A where we will turn our focus for this weekend’s winners as Aqueduct hosts a highly bettable 10-race card headlined by two graded stakes races on the grass – the long-distance Grade 2 Red Smith Stakes and the Grade 3 Pebbles Stakes for 3-year-old fillies. These are a pair of evenly-matched fields that will both offer money-making opportunities if we can land on the right horses. Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the one thing New York hasn’t had much of in the second half of 2023 – some good weekend weather! Best of luck and enjoy Saturday’s races from Aqueduct.

Aqueduct, Race 6, $200,000 Pebbles Stakes, post time 2:17 p.m. ET

Click image to purchase shirt.

The Grade 3 Pebbles goes at one mile on the turf for 3-year-old fillies and has drawn a field of nine. Most of the horses in the field are legitimate contenders and any of them could hit the board, so the Pebbles will be an excellent betting race. The most interesting horse in the lineup is #6 Sacred Wish, who was an accomplished dirt horse who posted a runner-up finish by a neck behind Wet Paint in the Grade 1 Coaching Club American Oaks and just recently was switched to the grass for trainer George Weaver. The move to the turf paid immediate dividends when she won the Winter Memories Stakes two races ago at this course and distance. Her fourth-place outing last time in Keeneland’s Grade 3 Bank of America Valley View Stakes was only a 1 ½-length loss, and Weaver has enjoyed a tremendous 2023 and is already off to a hot start at Aqueduct where he’s won three of five starts so far. There are several possibilities for the exactas and trifectas starting with another latecomer to the turf, #4 Precious Avary, who has five wins in 13 starts including a perfect 3-for-3 record on the grass with a win on the Maryland Million card last time. She’ll fly under the radar vs. this field but should be included in exotics at a price. If you like Sacred Wish, you also have to put #5 Silver Skillet somewhere on your tickets. She ran second by 1 ¼ lengths behind Sacred Wish in the Winter Memories and is in good form with five straight finishes in the exacta. Finally, no New York stakes race for fillies would be complete without a Chad Brown contender, and he seems to have a good one with #8 Rhiannon, a recent seven-length maiden winner with a good speed figure in her first start on the turf last time out.

The Play: Bet to win on #6 Sacred Wish (5-2) to win and key her in exacta boxes with each of #4 Precious Avary (15-1), #5 Silver Skillet (5-1), and #8 Rhiannon (2-1). Finally, play a trifecta key with Sacred Wish atop the same three horses.

Aqueduct, Race 9, $300,000 Red Smith Stakes, post time 3:43 p.m. ET

Click image to purchase shirt.

The Grade 2 Red Smith has drawn a full field of turf horses set to go 1 3/8 miles around three turns for a $300,000 purse. It’s a big field with a lot of contenders, so you’ll get paid nicely for hitting the exotics in this race no matter who you choose. The horse to beat is undoubtedly #8 Soldier Rising and he is worth a bet in this spot even if he is the favorite. These rivals are good horses, but Soldier Rising is getting some class relief today after facing Grade 1 competition in four of his five outings in 2023 with a trio of second-place finishes in those races behind the likes of some of the monsters in the division – Up to the Mark, War Like Goddess, and Red Knight. His other loss in the Grade 2 Bowling Green Stakes came when he got wiped out behind a spill which may have cost him the race. The most interesting challengers here will be #6 Nineeleventurbo and #7 Marwad. Nineeleventurbo is a win machine who spent 2023 ascending the turf ranks in SoCal including a runner-up finish behind Gold Phoenix in the Grade 2 Del Mar Handicap Presented by The Japan Racing Association. In his previous race, Nineeleventurbo shipped to Keeneland and won a high-priced allowance at 1 ½ miles. Marwad seemed to be destined for good things earlier this year when he nearly overcame post 12 to be second in the three-turn 1 3/8-mile Grade 2 Mac Diarmada Stakes March 4 at Gulfstream Park. He was off for seven months after that, but got an all-weather track prep race under his belt last month at Gulfstream and now ships to New York where he should mean business in this winnable spot at his ideal distance.

The Play:  Bet #8 Soldier Rising (3-1) to win and use him in three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes along with #6 Nineeleventurbo (6-1), and #7 Marwad (10-1).