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 SatuTalking 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.

Horseracing fans get the holiday gift they really want for Christmas by waiting until December 26 when the SoCal winter racing season celebrates its traditional opening day at Santa Anita Park. Tuesday will mark the start of a new meet and will kick-off one of the country’s premier annual winter racing seasons. Santa Anita will host several big days of racing and wagering during the meet, but few will be bigger and better than opening day when it all gets started with six graded stakes topped by three Grade 1 races.

For this weekend’s winners (Tuesday is not really the weekend, but this week it's close enough), we will focus on two of the afternoon’s three Grade 1 races, the La Brea Stakes and the featured Malibu Stakes. Best of luck on opening day and enjoy the winter racing season at Santa Anita.

Santa Anita, Race 8, $300,000 Malibu Stakes, post time 5:30 p.m. ET

The Grade 1 Malibu Stakes has drawn a high-quality competitive field of eight 3-year-olds ready to sprint seven furlongs. Bob Baffert trains three of the eight runners and all three will be among the favorites in the race. That’s a significant gauntlet for the other hopefuls in the race, but one of those horses very well may be up for the challenge and that is #8 Raise Cain who invades the west coast for trainer Ben Colebrook and gets Frankie Dettori aboard for the mount. Raise Cain has been at his best when he sticks to his wheelhouse distances of seven furlongs or one mile around one turn, and that was on full display in his last race which was a seven-furlong win in the $235,000 Perryville Stakes at Keeneland. There is a bunch of early speed entered in the Malibu and much of it comes from the Baffert trio of #2 Fort Bragg, #3 Speed Boat Beach, and #7 Hejazi. Baffert will work out a strategy so his three runners won’t hook up in a duel, but there’s still other speed entered in the race and a horse like Speed Boat Beach might have difficulty getting the seven furlongs, anyway. That should set the race up for Raise Cain stalking off the pace, and result in a battle for the exacta and trifecta between the best of the Baffert trio – either Fort Bragg, who comes in with triple-digit Beyer speed figures in three of his last four races, or Hejazi, who finished second in the seven-furlong $320,000 Lafeyette Stakes at Keeneland earlier this year and then looked like a monster when winning a Santa Anita optional claiming race last time out in his return from a layoff.

The Play: Bet to win on #8 Raise Cain (5-1) and box him in the exacta and trifecta with #2 Fort Bragg (3-1), and #7 Hejazi (3-1).

 

Santa Anita, Race 10, $300,000 La Brea Stakes, post time 6:30 p.m. ET

The $300,000 La Brea Stakes sets up as an excellent race for 3-year-old fillies that has drawn a field of 10 set to go seven furlongs. The horse to beat appears to be #9 Clearly Unhinged, who was unsuccessful last time out in the Breeders’ Cup but was going good in the races before that, including a second-place finish by a head in the Grade 1 Test Stakes at seven furlongs at Saratoga. A repeat of that kind of effort will make her tough to beat vs. these. If you are looking for a slightly better price, there are a pair of 4-1 shots on the morning line that have chances for the upset. The best option among those $10-type horses is #2 Daddysruby, a three-surface threat who is 4-for-5 in her career including 2-for-2 on the dirt. She’s won at a maximum distance at a mile in a turf race over the summer, so this seven-furlong assignment shouldn’t pose a problem. The other top contender is #3 Howl who ships in for trainer Brad Cox, who has begun her career a perfect 2-for-2 including a $100,000 stakes win last time at Laurel.

The Play:  Bet #2 Daddysruby (4-1) to win and box her in the exacta and trifecta with #3 Howl (4-1) and #9 Clearly Unhinged (3-1).