MediaWelcome 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.

Saturday is closing day of the 2025 Keeneland fall season and the meet goes out with a bang with a tremendous 10-race card headlined by a pair of graded stakes races that drew highly competitive fields. For this weekend’s winners, we will take a look at Keeneland’s two closing Saturday stakes races including the Grade 3 Bryan Station Stakes and the Grade 3 Hagyard Fayette Stakes. Let’s pick these winners and finish strong at Keeneland this Saturday! Best of luck.

Keeneland, Race 8, $600,000 Bryan Station Stakes, post time 4:44 p.m. ET

The Grade 3 Bryan Station Stakes has drawn a field full field of 3-year-old turf horses set to go one mile on the grass for a big purse of $600,000. This race is a bit of a conundrum because many of the main contenders have drawn far outside posts, potentially opening the race up for a horse from a better post to win. If you are not afraid to bet a far outside horse in a Keeneland turf mile race, however, then the pick is #12 Salamis for trainer Chad Brown based on his good-looking win last time in the $150,000 Gio Ponti Stakes at Belmont at the Big A. He shows a steady progression of race-to-race improvement going back four starts and that’s a great pattern to see from an improving 3-year-old at this time of the year. Another horse that has improved throughout the year (also drawn on the outside) is #11 Plensa for trainer Rusty Arnold. He exits a win in the nearly $2 million Gun Runner Stakes at Kentucky Downs at this distance where he beat #9 Giocoso, who was coming out of a victory in the Grade 2 Secretariat Stakes at Colonial Downs. A repeat of that effort makes him a legit threat in this race regardless of the outside post. Several horses in this field are exiting the Grade 1 Ainsworth Franklin Simpson Stakes at Kentucky Downs going 6 ½ furlongs, and the horse with the best chance among those contenders in today’s race at the best odds will be Franklin Simpson runner up #2 Golden Afternoon, who gave a very solid performance with a positive turnaround in form from his other recent races. Jose Ortiz is back for the mount and Golden Afternoon probably is even better at this mile distance than at 6 ½ furlongs based on his second-place finish at Keeneland a year ago in the Grade 2 Castle & Key Bourbon Stakes.

The Play: Bet on #12 Salamis (6-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Golden Afternoon (12-1) and #11 Plensa (5-1).

Keeneland, Race 9, $350,000 Hagyard Fayette Stakes, post time 5:16 p.m. ET

The Fayette came up exceptionally strong this year with some very high-profile contenders entered in this Grade 3 race going 1 1/8 miles on the main track. The most high-profile horse of all will be #11 Hit Show, who was the winner of this year’s $12 million Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline. He has since also added a win in the $200,000 West Virginia Governor’s Stakes. Hit Show won this race last year, is 2-for-2 at Keeneland, and has a great shot to repeat with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard. #10 Gosger steps up against older horses for the first time in his career, but he also has a chance to win if he can rebound from his flop last time in the Grade 1 Pennsylvania Derby. Before that last race, he gave Journalism a run for his money in both the Preakness Stakes and the Grade 1 NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes and was a winner right here at Keeneland this spring in the Grade 3 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes where he beat #3 Bracket Buster, among others. Finally, for the exactas and trifectas you’ll also want to include #6 Rattle and Roll whose form looks muddied up this year from losses in some extraordinarily tough spots. He nevertheless has the ability to win at this track and against this level of competition. Rattle and Roll won last fall’s Grade 2 Clark Stakes Presented by Norton Healthcare at Churchill Downs and owns two wins at Keeneland including in the 2023 Ben Ali Stakes. This will be his second start since coming back from the Middle East and he hopes to be back to his old self again.

The Play: Bet on #11 Hit Show (6-1) to win and play him in an exacta and trifecta boxes with #6 Rattle and Roll (12-1) and #11 Gosger (9-2).