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.

It’s mid-October and we are already into the heart of the Keeneland fall meet with the second Saturday of action coming up this weekend. The headline race on Keenland’s 10-race Saturday card is the Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes Presented by Dixiana, which has drawn an international field of top 3-year-old filly turfers. The rest of the program is stacked too, and it will give horseplayers plenty of opportunities to watch and wager throughout the day. This week, let’s focus on the latter portion of the Keeneland racecard on Saturday, including selections for the QEII in addition to Race 8, which will be a salty $110,000 allowance sprint that has drawn a large field loaded with contenders. Enjoy horse racing at Keeneland and best of luck.

Keeneland, Race 8, $110,000 allowance, post time 4:44 p.m. ET

Race 8 is a 6 ½-furlong allowance dirt sprint for fillies and mares with a six-figure purse and a several entrants in the field with a lot of potential. When all is said and done, the horse to beat should be #10 Accede, who is in an ideal spot for a positive turnaround in this spot after a string of losses in the past performances have muddied this horse’s form. Accede’s subpar results came in key races at longer distance and even in a turf experiment that didn’t work out last time, but today this horse gets back to what he’s apparently best at, which is sprinting on the dirt. She finished third in the Grade 3 Eight Belles Stakes Presented by Sysco at Churchill Downs this spring, and it’s encouraging to see Irad Ortiz Jr. named aboard this horse for trainer Chad Brown. One horse in the field that’s been in good form lately on both turf and dirt is #9 Zeitlos, who was both second by a length in a turf sprint at this distance at Kentucky Downs last time and third in a dirt allowance at Saratoga two races ago. She ran a solid effort for second here at Keeneland during the spring meet and will be dangerous from a close-up pace-pressing spot today for trainer Steve Asmussen. While on the subject of pace, it looks like one of the other likely favorites in the field, #2 Pumpkin Scone trained by Brad Cox, will have her hands full up on the lead fending off speedy Prairie Meadows maiden winner #7 You Little Vixen. That should set up the race nicely for Zeitlos and Accede.

The Play: Bet to win on #10 Accede (7-2) and play her in an exacta box with #9 Zeitlos (5-1).

Keeneland, Race 9, $600,000 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes Presented by Dixiana, post time 5:16 p.m. ET

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With no turf race restricted to 3-year-old fillies in the Breeders’ Cup program, the $600,000, Grade 1 QE II Challenge Cup at Keeneland annually serves as sort of a “Breeders’ Cup 3-Year-Old Fillies Turf.” This year is no exception, with the 1 1/8-mile turf stakes drawing an international 12-horse field worthy of such a moniker. Several high-quality English and European invaders are included in the QEII field, including a pair – #2 Elusive Princess and #6 Lindy – who have already crossed the pond and met with success in their most recent races. Elusive Princess made the biggest splash when winning the Grade 3 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Oaks Invitational Stakes by 3 ¾ lengths over the type of soft turf she seems to love, but the real horse to beat might be Lindy, who exits a win at Kentucky Downs last time in a four-horse field and more importantly finished second earlier this year at Longchamp in the Group 1 French One Thousand Guineas. The other foreign monstress in this race will be #4 Mawj, who, when last seen five months ago was the winner of the Group 1 English One Thousand Guineas over a 20-horse field. This is some serious firepower coming in from overseas, and it lessens the chances of the many high-quality but perhaps overmatched domestic contenders in the field. Mawj very well could turn out to be the horse to beat, but since Lindy has a recent prep under her belt and Mawj doesn’t, my money will be on Lindy at a better price.

The Play:  Bet #6 Lindy (6-1) to win and play three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes with the other top foreign invaders, #2 Elusive Princess (3-1) and #4 Mawj (2-1).