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.

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.

Gulfstream Park is the place to be this Saturday with a 14-race card that includes eight graded stakes races, capped off by the running of the $400,000, Grade 2 Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes for 3-year-olds on the road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. The robust undercard features all kinds of high quality races and will be headlined by the seasonal debut of last year’s 2-year-old filly champion Just F Y I in the Davona Dale Stakes Presented by FanDuel TV. Perhaps the best betting race on the undercard will be race 12, which will be the Grade 3 Canadian Turf Stakes which has a big, wide-open field of contenders for handicappers to choose from. Fountain of Youth Day is one of winter’s biggest and best days of racing and wagering. Enjoy racing from Gulfstream Park. Best of luck.

Saturday, March 2

Gulfstream Park, Race 12, $150,000 Canadian Turf Stakes, post time 4:53 p.m. ET

The Grade 3 Canadian Turf Stakes drew a field of 10 older horses set to race 1 1/16 miles on the grass. A case can be made for several of the horses in the field, including one of the longshots in the morning-line odds – #1 Saratoga Flash. His recent form is very murky due to back-to-back losses on Gulfstream’s all-weather track, but if you are willing to go three races back in the past performances to Saratoga Flash’s last turf race you will find a wire-to-wire win at Kentucky Downs with a big speed figure over a field that included #5 Siege of Boston and many more good horses. There is little to no other speed entered in this race, especially if #9 Giant Game scratches as expected or doesn’t take to the turf. In that case, Saratoga Flash could be allowed to enjoy an easy trip on a soft pace and he could prove difficult to catch at a nice price. The morning-line favorite in this race is #3 Emmanuel, who is vulnerable in his return from a six-month layoff. That said, he does make a ton of sense in this spot as the defending champion of the Canadian Turf Stakes from 2023, and he was able to post a stakes win in his return from a layoff last year when he won the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Stakes in fine fashion with a strong speed figure right off the bench. The other major player to consider for your exotics tickets today is #2 Smokin’ T, who when last seen looked impressive winning the Grade 3 River City Stakes at Churchill Downs. John Velazquez is back for the mount, and he looked like a great fit aboard this horse when winning the River City as well as last year’s Lure Stakes at Saratoga.

The Play: Bet to win on #1 Saratoga Flash (15-1) and play him in three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes along with #2 Smokin’ T (6-1), and #3 Emmanuel (2-1).

Gulfstream Park, Race 14, $400,000 Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes, post time 6:10 p.m. ET

Click to purchase ABR hat.

The Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes going 1 1/16 miles on the Gulfstream main track has drawn a nine-horse field and has the look of a very legitimate prep race that should sort out some contenders from the pretenders on the road to the Kentucky Derby. The FOY features the 3-year-old debuts of two of last year’s juvenile stars – #5 Dornoch, who won the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes, and #8 Locked, who won Keeneland’s Grade 1 Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity – versus a pair of very good-looking newcomers who exit a 1-2 finish in one of the fastest maiden races of the winter at Gulfstream Park – #1 Speak Easy and #5 Victory Avenue. This race should be a battle royale, and the winner should assume a spot atop many people’s list of contenders for the upcoming run for the roses. The connections of last year’s Kentucky Derby hero Mage send out Victory Avenue, who is still a maiden but ran big in defeat in his career debut last time behind Speak Easy, who earned a 100 Beyer Speed Figure in that race. The Mage crew will no doubt also be interested in the performance of Dornoch, who is Mage’s full brother (same sire [father] and dam [mother]). Dornoch was flattered when Sierra Leone, the horse he fended off in the Aqueduct stretch to win the Remsen on Dec. 2, came back and won the Grade 2 Risen Star Stakes impressively, and therefore he is the top selection. Locked was originally scheduled to make his 3-year-old debut in February’s Sam F. Davis Stakes but missed some training and will have to overcome that adversity as he instead tries this spot.

The Play:  Bet #5 Dornoch (2-1) to win and box him in the exactas and trifectas with #1 Speak Easy (9-2) and #3 Victory Avenue (4-1).