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.
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Tampa Bay Downs takes center stage this week as the road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve makes a stop in town for the running of the $400,000, Grade 3 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby. Tampa will also offer a great supporting card on Saturday with four undercard stakes on the program including three other graded stakes. For this weekend’s winners, let’s focus on a pair of Saturday undercard stakes races from Tampa including the $75,000 Columbia Stakes and the $200,000, Grade 3 Florida Oaks. This way, if the Tampa Bay Derby gets dominated by the favorites as seems likely, we will still be playing a pair of races that could end up offering attractive payoffs. Best of luck and enjoy Tampa Bay Derby Day.

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 7, $75,000 Columbia Stakes, post time 3:04 p.m. ET

The $75,000 Columbia Stakes has assembled a 10-horse field of 3-year-old turf horses set to go one mile. The field includes a lot of promising runners, including many that have already shown ability in various stakes races last year and early this year. The horse to beat is #10 Fulmineo, who lost last fall’s Prevagen Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf after running a very good second the race before in the Grade 2 Pilgrim Stakes at Aqueduct where he was beaten only by favored Agate Road. Fulmineo’s two races so far this season have been experiments on dirt, but this horse’s bread and butter definitely seems like it’s on the grass and none of his opponents should be able to come close to him back on his preferred surface. The rest of this field does include a pair of horses from trainers Chad Brown and Graham Motion – #3 Move to Gold and #9 Tok Tok, respectively – and turfers from those barns can/should never be overlooked in a spot like this. Move to Gold won the $135,000 Awad Stakes at Aqueduct last fall and Tok Tok was a stakes winner in the $133,000 Kitten’s Joy Stakes at Colonial Downs, but both of these horses are coming back off nearly four-month layoffs and might need a race in order to knock off a horse like Fulmineo who already has two starts under his belt this year.

The Play: Bet to win on #10 Fulmineo (4-1) and key him in the exacta and trifecta over #3 Move to Gold (5-2), and #9 Tok Tok (3-1).

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 10, $200,000 Florida Oaks, post time 4:45 p.m. ET

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The Grade 3 Florida Oaks has drawn a full field of 12 fillies set to go 1 1/16 miles on the turf for a purse of $200,000. This is a tough race for handicappers because it is loaded with contenders and contains plenty of X-factors who will be trying the turf for the first time but have run well on other surfaces including #1 Poolside With Slim and #12 Witwatersrand. With so many contenders to choose from who’ve already demonstrated good turf ability, however, it’s probably advisable in this race to stick with them. #5 Waskesiu seems to be the horse in the race that combines the best turf form with the best turf connections and the best price on the morning line at 8-1. Hailing from the barn of Bill Mott and with Mott’s main man, jockey Junior Alvarado, aboard, Waskesiu has been very good in two races since switching to the turf including her maiden win two races ago and a runner-up finish last time in Gulfstream Park’s $125,000 Ginger Brew Stakes where she was just a neck behind graded stakes winner and multiple graded stakes-placed Life’s an Audible, who likely would be a strong favorite in this spot. For the other positions in the exacta and trifecta, it’s a tight call between #7 Style Points and #11 Dynamic Pricing, who have taken turns beating each other at the maiden level and then again last time when second and third respectively in the Grade 3 Sweetest Chant Stakes at Gulfstream, where both of them were edged by the aforementioned Life’s an Audible.

The Play:  Bet #5 Waskesiu (8-1) to win and box her in the exactas and trifectas along with #7 Style Points (5-1) and #11 Dynamic Pricing (7-2).