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.

Gulfstream Park, Race 14, $1,000,000 Curlin Florida Derby Presented by Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms at Xalapa, post time 6:42 p.m. ET

The Florida Derby is finally here, and the trademark race of the Gulfstream Park winter meet has drawn a tough field of 10 horses set to run 1 1/8 miles for a purse of $1 million. Just like the winner of the Arkansas Derby, the Florida Derby winner will advance onward to Churchill Downs as one of the favorites in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. When it comes to success in the Florida Derby, the guy you want on your team is trainer Todd Pletcher, who has won the race eight times including three of the last four years. This year he sends out lightly-raced maiden winner #4 Disruptor, who not only will step up in class but also navigate two turns for the first time. His win came by 9 ¼ lengths at seven furlongs in a professional manner after not having the benefit of a clear early lead, and his Gun Runner pedigree should allow him to navigate the rigors of this 1 1/8-mile trip if he’s good enough. The horse to beat is obviously #10 Sovereignty, a Grade 3 stakes winner as a 2-year-old who exits a win in Gulfstream’s Grade 2 Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes where he closed to get the win over Pletcher trainee River Thames in successful 3-year-old debut off a four-month layoff. He may progress off of that win or he may also regress in this second race back from the layoff, but either way he’ll be a handful and he needs to be on your tickets even at odds of 8-5 on the morning line. Handicappers sometimes make too big a deal out of post positions, but the 1 1/8-mile distance at Gulfstream Park is not one of those times. Outside posts at Gulfstream Park have justly earned their reputation for being terrible in two-turn routes with poor statistics for the 20 years since the track was reconfigured to its current layout. While Disruptor benefits from his post draw, all the other top contenders in this race including Sovereignty as well as #8 Madaket Road and #9 Tappan Street drew those bad outside posts. If you have to choose among those others for a third horse in your trifectas, Madaket Road comes in with speed and good form from Bob Baffert’s west coast-based barn and has faced top-rung competition the likes of Citizen Bull, Rodriguez, Coal Battle, and Sandman in his last two starts while accomplishing second- and third-place finishes.

The Play: Bet on #4 Disruptor (4-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #8 Madaket Road (7-2) and #10 Sovereignty (8-5).

Oaklawn Park, Race 13, $1,500,000 Arkansas Derby, post time 7:48 p.m. ET

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A field of nine contenders has been assembled for the crown jewel of Oaklawn Park’s road to the Kentucky Derby, the 1 1/8-mile Grade 1 Arkansas Derby. Trainer Bob Baffert has had loads of success through the years using Oaklawn’s Derby preps as steppingstones for some of his top 3-year-olds. Can he repeat that with this year’s entrant, #9 Cornucopian, a horse that has raced only once? Cornucopian showed huge talent in his six-furlong career debut maiden win, but will that translate to another win in this Grade 1 spot against more seasoned horses racing 1 1/8 miles around two-turns? Maybe, or maybe not, but because he is trained by Baffert, one thing is sure: his odds will be low in comparison to his actual chances. At this point in his career, he might turn out to be special, or he might turn out to be only Baffert’s sixth-string 3-year-old. We just don’t know yet. #8 Coal Battle is a proven win machine that comes into this race off four straight stakes wins including two of Oaklawn’s prior Derby preps, the $250,000 Smarty Jones Stakes and last month’s Grade 2 Rebel Stakes. There’s nothing about the distance, surface, or competition of this race that indicates he can’t continue his winning streak for at least one more race. If there is a horse in the field able to beat Coal Battle, it’s likely to be #6 Sandman, a late runner that has closed for back-to-back in-the-money finishes in the Rebel Stakes, where he came from way too far back at a shorter distance, and in the Grade 3 Southwest Stakes where he overcame a brutally bad start to rally for second by a length while 1 ½ lengths ahead of Tiztastic, who has since come back to win the Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby. Sandman has faced a who’s who of the best horses in this division all throughout his career so far, and this may finally be the spot where he scores a breakthrough.

The Play: Bet #8 Coal Battle (7-2) to win and box him in the exacta with #6 Sandman (3-1). For the trifecta, play a three-horse box by adding #9 Cornucopian (7-5).