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.

Tampa Bay Downs is in the spotlight this week with an excellent 11-race card on Saturday topped by the $250,000, Grade 3 Sam F. Davis Stakes, which is a 3-year-old prep race on the road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. Additionally, Tampa will have three more stakes races on the undercard including the $50,000 Minaret Stakes, which is a sprint for older fillies and mares that is shaping up to be an excellent betting race. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a closer look at the Minaret Stakes and the Sam F. Davis Stakes. Both of these events are wide open, and upsets are possible in both races if you handicap the right horse. Best of luck and enjoy Saturday racing from Tampa Bay Downs.

Saturday, Feb. 10

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 7, $50,000 Minaret Stakes, post time 3:43 p.m.

The Minaret Stakes is a six-furlong stakes race for older fillies and mares that has drawn a nine-horse field and includes some big names like graded stakes winners #4 Lady Radler and #2 Chi Town Lady, who won the Grade 1 Test Stakes back in 2022. Both of those runners have a chance to win, but both are also returning from the sidelines and it’s possible that their better days are behind them. Instead, let’s look for some potential up-and-comers starting with #5 Dreaming of Snow, who is a past stakes winner at Tampa Bay Downs, owns a recent sprint win on the track, and owns two wins at this six-furlong distance earlier in her career. She goes out for top Tampa connections trainer Gerald Bennett and jockey Samy Camacho and has the speed to lead but also has the ability to rate at this distance. Two others to put on your tickets are #1 Dream Concert, who is in good form with two straight runner-up finishes in Tampa stakes and a total three career wins at six furlongs, and #3 Unifying, who already has a race under her belt off a layoff and will improve. Back in June she won a competitive stakes race at Ellis Park by three lengths and she had a tough trip when third last time in the Rampart Stakes at Gulfstream Park.

The Play: Bet to win on #5 Dreaming of Snow (8-1) and play her in three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 Dream Concert (3-1) and #3 Unifying (4-1).

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 10, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes, post time 5:15 p.m. ET

Click image to purchase shirt.

A field of 12 Kentucky Derby hopefuls is ready to line up to run 1 1/16 miles for the Sam F. Davis Stakes and the race is loaded with possibilities including horses stepping up in class, horses stretching out, and horses that are proven on turf but are now trying dirt. With so many variables, it’s wise to stick with the more proven runners in the race that have some winning experience going at least a mile on the dirt. The top pick is #10 West Saratoga, who will be making his second start of 2024 after finishing a distant second in the local seven-furlong Pasco Stakes last time out behind Book’em Danno, a multiple stakes winner who would have been favored if he were entered in this spot. West Saratoga got a race under his belt and is sitting on an improved effort Saturday, and he's good enough based on a pair of mile wins as a 2-year-old including in the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes at Churchill Downs. The other horse in this field that seems obviously up to the task at this level is #9 Change of Command, a Shug McGaughey trainee who comes off back-to-back wins at Gulfstream Park including an optional claiming win last time at this 1 1/16-mile distance over promising Todd Pletcher maiden winner Cardinale, whom he outbattled in the stretch. McGaughey has meant business when shipping his horses to Tampa this season with 7 wins from 14 starters so far at the meet. The wild cards in the race are a pair of quality turf runners – #6 Agate Road and #11 Fulmineo – who will see if they can transfer their prowess to the main track, but their odds will be no bargain for horses with talents that are mostly unproven on the dirt. Instead, the third horse to use in your exotics is #7 Copper Tax, who flopped in the Remsen Stakes in his final start of 2023 but before that had reeled off five straight wins with two stakes scores, including one at one mile.

The Play:  Bet #10 West Saratoga (8-1) to win and box him in the exactas and trifectas with #7 Copper Tax (5-1) and #9 Change of Command (3-1).