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.

Saturday, March 22

Fair Grounds, Race 7, $100,000 Crescent City Derby, post time 4 p.m. ET

A full field of 14 Louisiana-breds is set to line up for this $100,000 stakes race. The most upwardly mobile horse in the race is #4 Sippin on Gin, who exits a $100,000 stakes win on this track over some of these same rivals in his last race. He’s 2-for-2 since stretching out to two-turn route races like this one and shows a rapidly improving speed figure pattern that you love to see in a 3-year-old at this time of year. #9 Cajun Mitole boasts three career wins including a $100,000 state-bred stakes win at Delta Downs two races ago and finished second behind Sippin on Gin last time out, so he deserves a spot in your exactas and trifectas, as does #14 Wicked as Haggart if he is able to overcome his wide post draw out in the parking lot. Wicked as Haggart sprang to life with a 7 ¼-length win last time in his first stretchout attempt to a route distance, and the Beyer Speed Figure he earned is the highest route speed figure of any horse in this field.

The Play: Bet on #4 Sippin on Gin (5-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #9 Cajun Mitole (5-1) and #14 Wicked as Haggart (10-1).

Fair Grounds, Race 12, $1,000,000 Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby, post time 6:42 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Louisiana Derby drew a 10-horse field of 3-year-olds hoping to take the next step on the road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve, and the first two finishers will be all but guaranteed spots in the run for the roses based on their performances in this key 1 3/16-mile prep race. Even though his speed figures so far lag behind some of the other horses in this race, #1 John Hancock has made a strong positive impression when winning his first two career starts and should be the horse to beat. He exits a win in Tampa Bay Downs’ $200,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes where he beat Owen Almighty, who then flattered John Hancock by returning to win the Grade 3 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby in his next outing. He’s a speedy horse who will face more intense pressure up on or close to the pace in this spot, but he seems like an upwardly mobile 3-year-old that has landed in a prime spot in the Louisiana Derby, a race which this year did not draw any of the other top Kentucky Derby contenders up to this point in the season. #5 Caldera is an interesting contender in this race for legendary trainer D. Wayne Lukas, who just won last week’s Virginia Derby with another of his 3-year-olds, American Promise, in a runaway. Caldera has taken giant forward steps in each of his three route races so far with rapidly rising speed figures in his prior two outings including a close nose loss last time in the $400,000 Sunland Park Derby. Let’s see what Lukas has in store for us this time. Finally, #6 Built has danced every dance on the Fair Grounds road to the Kentucky Derby and he’s run well each time so far with a win in the $96,000 Gun Runner Stakes, a close second from post 12 behind unbeaten Disco Time in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes, and a third last time in the Grade 2 Fasig-Tipton Risen Star Stakes when just a head out of second behind the promising but now sidelined Magnitude. Built is solid and consistent and deserves a spot on your tickets.

The Play: Bet #1 John Hancock (7-2) to win and box him in exactas and trifectas with #5 Caldera (5-1) and #6 Built (4-1).