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.

One of the great exotic bets being offered by Santa Anita Park this season is the Coast to Coast Pick 5, which is on the wagering menu every Saturday and Sunday throughout the meet through June 16. The bet gives horseplayers a chance to handicap some of the weekend’s best races and make a big score with a low takeout bet on an affordable ticket.

Learn more about the Coast to Coast Pick 5

As its name implies, the Coast to Coast Pick 5 will encompass a five-race sequence of pre-selected races from two tracks on each coast – Santa Anita Park and Gulfstream Park. The bet has a $1 minimum denomination and a player-friendly 15% takeout.

For this installment of Weekend Winners, let’s delve into the five highly playable Coast to Coast Pick 5 races this Saturday, April 6. The Pick 5 will include one race from Gulfstream and four races from Santa Anita ending with the Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby, which goes as Race 10. First, we’ll handicap each race individually, and then let’s construct some Coast to Coast Pick 5 combinations and see if we can hit it for an investment of less than $100.

Coast to Coast Pick 5 – Saturday, April 6

Santa Anita Park, Race 3, allowance optional claiming, post time 4 p.m. ET

Saturday’s Coast to Coast Pick 5 kicks off with this six-furlong turf sprint for fillies and mares starting on the backstretch that has drawn a field of 10. It’s a loaded field that could come down to two top contenders, and that is how we will begin our betting on Saturday. The horse to beat is #9 Rugelach, a filly with three wins in her last five races including one on this course and at the distance two races ago. She exits a close third-place at this level and is earning remarkably consistent and good speed figures in all recent races. Her biggest challenge will come from #2 Queen Molotov, a mare that has been no worse than second in all of her last five races. She ran well in return from a four-month layoff with a second-place finish on the all-weather surface at Golden Gate Fields and is prepped and ready now to return to her preferred turf surface in the second race off the layoff. She’ll be tested for distance at six furlongs but is a perfect fit at this class level and will be tough to leave off your tickets.

The Play: Bet to win on #9 Rugelach (3-1) and play a two-horse exacta box with Rugelach and #2 Queen Molotov (5-1). Play both horses in the first leg of your Coast to Coast Pick 5 tickets.

Gulfstream Park, Race 8, allowance optional claiming, post time 4:37 p.m. ET

The lone race in this Saturday’s Pick 5 sequence from Gulfstream Park is a 1 1/16-mile allowance-optional claiming race on the turf for 3-year-old fillies that has drawn a stakes-caliber field of 10. The race features all sorts of contenders, but we need to keep the price of our Pick 5 tickets to a reasonable level so let’s focus on the top two challengers. From the rail, #1 Madame Mischief looks forward to getting back onto the grass here after losing an off-the-turf race last time. Turf is her best surface, and she gets legitimate class relief after three competitive turf stakes losses earlier at this meet. #2 Top Blue exits a very promising third-place finish in her first-ever turf race last time where she finished third behind Pounce, the winner of Gulfstream’s Grade 3 Herecomesthebride Stakes and probable favorite in this weekend’s Grade 2 Appalachian Stakes Presented by Japan Racing Association at Keeneland.

The Play:  Bet #2 Top Blue (6-1) to win and box her in the exacta with #1 Madame Mischief (5-2). In the Coast to Coast Pick 5 sequence, use both in the second leg.

Santa Anita Park, Race 7, allowance optional claiming, post time 6:04 p.m. ET

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The third leg of Saturday’s Cost to Coast Pick 5 is perhaps the best betting race on the Santa Anita card and the best place to catch a live horse at a big price. It features a full field of 12 fillies and mares set to go one mile on the turf. It will be helpful not to be marooned on the far outside, but there are plenty of legit contenders who’ve drawn cozy inside post positions starting with the pick, #1 Pleasant Wave, a closer who should get plenty of pace in this race to help set-up her late run. She showed a bit of tactical speed in her sprint prep return race off a layoff last time and she’ll be ready to roll in this stretchout to a much-better distance for her in a race with plenty of pace to chase. A pair of those speed horses are also top contenders as they attempt to go all the way: #2 Irresistible Force, who stretched out to one mile last time and ran her best career race, and #3 Hennys Crazy Train, who exits two straight seconds at this level. There are two European invaders in this race; of the two, the preference is with #9 Royal Charter, who gets Frankie Dettori aboard and won a one-mile race at Newmarket last summer.

The Play: Bet to win on #1 Pleasant Wave (20-1) and play Pleasant Wave in a three-horse exacta box along with #2 Irresistible Force (12-1) and #3 Hennys Crazy Train (6-1). Use those three horses as well as #9 Royal Charter (5-1) on your Coast to Coast Pick 5 tickets.

Santa Anita Park, Race 9, $100,000 Monrovia Stakes, post time 7:09 p.m. ET

Ag Bullet (BENOIT photo)

The Grade 3 Monrovia Stakes is a 6 ½-furlong turf sprint carded on Santa Anita’s downhill turf course that had drawn a field of eight fillies and mares. Many of the starters in this race are exiting Santa Anita’s $100,000 Wishing Well Stakes on Feb. 25 won by #6 Ag Bullet, and Ag Bullet will once again be the horse to beat based on that victory over a similar field that came in her return from nearly a one-year layoff. With that race under her belt, Ag Bullet perhaps will be even more of a force to be reckoned with in her second start off the layoff. The other horse in the race with the best chance is #4 Chismosa, who has run downhill sprint stakes twice at this meet and just missed both times including when fourth beaten by only half a length in January’s $150,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint and last time out when third by three-quarters of a length in the $100,000 Irish O’Brien Stakes. Speed figures suggest this will be an even matchup between #4 Chismosa and #6 Ag Bullet. May the best filly win on Saturday.

The Play:  Bet #6 Ag Bullet (9-5) to win and box her in the exactas with #4 Chismosa (5-1). Use both Ag Bullet and Chismosa in the Coast to Coast Pick 5.

Santa Anita Park, Race 10, $750,000 Santa Anita Derby, post time 7:45 p.m. ET

Wynstock (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Grade 1 Santa Anita Derby drew a field of eight 3-year-olds set to run 1 1/8 miles. The horse to beat is the Bob Baffert-trained #5 Wynstock, who needs to rebound from a poor effort last time but might fly under the radar at overlaid odds as a result in this race (8-1 morning line odds). Wynstock won the Los Alamitos Futurity in December but did not get a good start in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park last time and then got stuck in traffic and resented the mud getting kicked in his face on a sloppy track he didn’t handle. Baffert’s “other” horse is always a great angle, and Wynstock should respond to racing back in the friendly confines of SoCal on Saturday. Baffert’s favorite in the race is #4 Imagination, and he’s a major contender as well after out-battling stablemate Wine Me Up in last month’s DK Horse San Felipe Stakes. The other main contender in the race looks like #3 Stronghold based on his score last time in the Sunland Park Derby. He can win the Santa Anita Derby if he keeps on improving despite the fact that the competition in the Sunland Derby wasn’t great and that he lost by a half a length to Wynstock when they met in the Los Al Futurity.

The Play: Bet to win on #5 Wynstock (8-1). Play a two-horse exacta box with Wynstock and #4 Imagination (8-5), and a three-horse trifecta box by adding #3 Stronghold (5-2) to the mix. Use all three horses in the anchor leg of your Coast to Coast Pick 5 plays.

Coast to Coast Pick 5 Sequence

2,9 / 1,2 / 1,2,3,9 / 4,6 / 3,4,5

2 x 2 x 4 x 2 x 3 x $1 = $96