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 Talking Horses, and on broadcast TV on WAVE-3 Louisville, ABC KOLO-8 in Reno, Nevada, and channel 72 Long Island Cablevision.

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.

Monmouth Park, Race 10, $150,000 Salvator Mile Stakes, post time 4:55 p.m. ET

The featured Grade 3 Salvator Mile has drawn a field of nine older horses set to compete for a purse of $150,000. A case can be made for several of these horses to win but the one to beat is undoubtedly the favorite #9 Bishops Bay, a horse that has never finished worse than second in nine lifetime starts with six career wins. Bishops Bay was knocking on the door last year with graded stakes runner-up finishes two years ago in both the 2023 Peter Pan Stakes and the 2023 Ohio Derby and, after being away from racing for well over a year, he has more recently gotten over the hump at the stakes level in his last two starts including a win last time in the Grade 3 Westchester Stakes racing one mile at Belmont at the Big A. It will be extremely difficult to keep him out of the exacta. The horse with the best upset chance is #3 Tuscan Sky and that opinion is based on the Todd Pletcher trainee’s powerful win on this day last year in the $150,000 Pegasus Stakes where he crushed the field that included Domestic Product and others by 6 ¾ lengths. Tuscan Sky has not won since then and will need to improve off his recent results, but he can upset this race with a repeat of that career-best effort a year ago which came right here on this racetrack. After the top two, the next realistic challenger in this race will be #4 Offaly Cool, who has finished in the money in all five of his recent races, four of which were at Parx Racing with a minor stakes win back on Dec. 31. He exits a 2 ¾-length win in an allowance optional claiming race last time which makes him a contender, at least for the trifectas.

The Play: Bet on #3 Tuscan Sky (7-2) to win and play him in exacta boxes with #9 Bishops Bay (6-5). For trifecta boxes, add #4 Offaly Cool (6-1) along with the top two picks.

Monmouth Park, Race 11, $150,000 Eatontown Stakes, post time 5:24 p.m. ET

The second of two graded stakes on the Monmouth Saturday card is the Grade 3 Eatontown Stakes for fillies and mares going 1 1/16 miles on the turf. The morning-line favorite in this race is #1 Maggie Go, an Argentinian invader trained by Chad Brown who has not raced in nearly a year. That horse would look more like a questionable X-factor than a favorite if she weren’t trained by Brown and ridden by Flavien Prat, so if she’s a low price it’s probably worth taking a shot against her, at least with your win bets. To win, let’s go with #2 Five Towns who will have her best-ever chance to get over the hump in a graded stakes race here after exiting a solid Grade 2 effort last time in the Longines Churchill Distaff Turf Mile Stakes where she lost by only a length. Another similar effort here for turf ace trainer Graham Motion should get the job done vs. this field. The third of the main contenders in the Eatontown is #3 Ozara, a multiple stakes-winning 4-year-old in good current form with wins in two of her three recent races including a $75,000 stakes win at Gulfstream Park last time out.

The Play: Bet on #2 Five Towns (3-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 Maggie Go (8-5) and #3 Ozara (7-2).