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.

Saturday will be the final graded stakes blowout of the year in New York racing in 2023, and Aqueduct is giving the season a proper send-off with a tremendous 10-race card featuring four graded stakes. The stakes quartet will be the last four races on the card and will offer bettors an all-stakes late Pick 4 as well as numerous other wagering opportunities. For this week’s winners, let’s focus our attention on the last two races, including the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes for 2-year-olds and the headline Grade 2 Cigar Mile Handicap. Both races drew big fields and are interesting handicapping puzzles. Best of luck Saturday at The Big A.

Aqueduct, Race 9, $250,000 Remsen Stakes, post time 3:45 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Remsen Stakes for 2-year-olds hoping to advance further on the road to next year’s Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve drew a contentious 10-horse field ready to stretch out to 1 1/8 miles on the main track. The headliner of the bunch is #3 Dornoch, who is a full brother to 2023 Kentucky Derby winner Mage, but the publicity surrounding him will only serve to knock down his price and create a major underlay on the tote board for a horse that only has a maiden win to his credit so far. He has a big chance to win, but his presence will create overlay betting opportunities for many other horses in the field who could be unjustly overlooked. There are many other promising prospects in the race, and the Todd Pletcher duo of #4 Moonlight and #10 Private Desire could be the best of them. Moonlight scored a blowout maiden win on this track two races ago and then was second in the Grade 3 Street Sense Stakes last time out, and he enlists leading rider Irad Ortiz Jr. in the Remsen. Private Desire looked good in his maiden win and probably can handle this stretchout despite his last race, which was a disappointing loss to some of these same horses in the $145,000 Nashua Stakes when a slow start took him off his best game and cost him any chance. The price will be right here if you want to give him another chance. What makes the Remsen such a tough race is that you have so many legit contenders in the field, also including, but not limited to, #5 Drum Roll Please, #8 Where’s Chris, #9 Copper Tax, and the horses mentioned earlier. The one thing they all have in common is that they’ll be stretching to 1 1/8 miles for the first time. The only horse in here with experience at the distance – winning experience – is #2 Domestic Product, who creamed maidens at this track and distance last time out for Chad Brown. He’s worth inclusion at his 10-1 odds on the morning line.

The Play: Bet to win on #4 Moonlight (9-2) and use him in three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Domestic Product (10-1) and #10 Private Desire (10-1).

Aqueduct, Race 10, $500,000 Cigar Mile Handicap, post time 4:12 p.m. ET

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The Grade 2 Cigar Mile Handicap drew a high-quality 12-horse field fitting of its status as the final top-tier mile race on the annual stakes calendar. It’s a great betting race where you can make a legitimate case for several horses in the field to win, and most of them are live for at least a spot in the exotics. The most likely winner is #2 Everso Mischievous, who has won four of his last five outings with the lone loss coming by a head back in June. Everso Mischievous enters off back-to-back stakes wins including the local prep for the Cigar Mile, the Grade 2 Forty Niner Stakes, where he beat a couple of top contenders he’ll face again Saturday. As a matter of fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise if this race ended up with a similar finish as the Forty Niner, where Aqueduct horse-for-the-course #5 Dr Ardito was second and where Chad Brown’s talented but lightly raced #10 Accretive was third. Outside of the top three from the Forty Niner, the most interesting of the invaders in this race will be #3 Senor Buscador, who exits a loss in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic and was not embarrassed in a couple of Grade 1 California outings before that, the FanDuel Racing Pacific Classic and the Awesome Again Stakes. Senor Buscador is a deep closer who’s recently been competing in longer races at 1 1/8 miles and 1 ¼ miles, but he actually seems at his best in the past performances when he comes from behind at one mile or 1 1/16 miles, such as he did this summer when winning the Grade 2 San Diego Handicap at Del Mar, and last fall when he won the Grade 3 2022 Ack Ack Stakes at Churchill Downs. The cutback to a mile might be just fine for Senor Buscador, and that makes him dangerous in Saturday’s race.

The Play:  Bet #2 Everso Mischievous (4-1) to win and box him in the exacta with #3 Senor Buscador (7-2). Finally, back it up with a trifecta keying #2 Everso Mischievous over #3 Senor Buscador, #5 Dr Ardito (8-1), and #10 Accretive (4-1).