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.

Saturday, July 12

The wait is over … the Saratoga Race Course summer season is finally here … and “the Spa” meet wastes no time accelerating into high gear with great racing and wagering featured throughout opening weekend. The first Saturday of the season will feature a 12-race program headlined by two graded stakes races on the grass – the Grade 2 Bowling Green Stakes and the first Grade 1 race of the Spa season, the $500,000 Dunkin’ Diana Stakes. Let’s pick some winners and get off to a strong start at Saratoga’s summer meet. Best of luck.

Saratoga, Race 8, $200,000 Bowling Green Stakes, 4:29 p.m. ET

The Bowling Green Stakes has drawn a field of eight older horses set to race 1 3/8 miles on the turf for a purse of $200,000. There are also three main-track-only entrants in the case of rain. The field is jam-packed with contenders led by the favorite and horse to beat #7 Far Bridge, a multiple Grade 1 winner in 2024 who has won two of his three outings so far in 2025. He exits a close neck loss last time in the Grade 1 Resorts World Casino Manhattan Stakes where the distance of 1 1/8 miles might have been a little too short for him, but he’s a strong candidate to rebound going longer. A case could be made for several challengers to fill the role of upsetter in this race and the odds will be good on horses that have legit chances based on their best efforts. The horse with a potential pace advantage will be #8 Corruption, who should make the lead and will go as fast as he can as far as he can in an attempt to hold off Far Bridge. Corruption and Far Bridge were only a neck apart when they met at 1 ½ miles at Gulfstream Park earlier this year in the Grade 3 Pan American Stakes Presented by Rood & Riddle. Corruption likes to set the pace, but he couldn’t make the lead last time in the Manhattan after getting off to a slow start. Cross out that loss and try again in this spot. Many of the other contenders in the Bowling Green have similar deep closing running styles and will be trying to make their dent from far back. The late runner in the field with the most upside at the best odds looks like #2 El Rezeen, who won two races on this course last year as a 3-year-old and then ran a close third within a length of the likes of Carson’s Run and Deterministic in last fall’s Grade 3 Jockey Club Derby Invitational Stakes. He made his 4-year-old debut with a prep race at Keeneland and now should be fully cranked up and ready to roll for trainer Todd Pletcher.

The Play: Bet on #8 Corruption (5-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 El Rezeen (8-1) and #7 Far Bridge (6-5).

Saratoga, Race 11, $500,000 Dunkin’ Diana Stakes, 6:14 p.m. ET

Diana contender Dynamic Pricing (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Grade 1 Diana Stakes is the day’s featured race with a field of six fillies and mares set to square off at 1 1/8 miles on the turf. No Grade 1 turf race at Saratoga would be complete with one or more Chad Brown trained principal contenders, and the Diana is no exception as Brown sends out #4 Excellent Truth and #5 Dynamic Pricing in an attempt to knock-off the big favorite in the race, #1 She Feels Pretty. She Feels Pretty has won seven of her 10 lifetime starts and comes in riding high on a four-race winning streak dating to last fall that includes three Grade 1s, capped by her win at Saratoga last time out in the Grade 1 New York Stakes Presented by Rivers Casino on June 6. Now she’s back for more and is clearly the horse to beat, although it should be mentioned that her last loss came right here at Saratoga last summer when second as the odds-on favorite in the Grade 2 Lake Placid Stakes. If there is going to be an upset in the Diana it is very likely to come from one of the Chad Brown trainees mentioned above. Excellent Truth got an absolutely brutal trip under Flavien Prat two races ago when second in Keeneland’s Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes and could have won that race if not for significant trouble. She came back to lose to Brown’s Dynamic Pricing in last month’s Grade 1 Just a Game Stakes Presented by Resolute Racing going a mile at Saratoga, and that late running win at a mile by Dynamic Pricing points her out as the horse in the field with the best chance to surprise the favorite.

The Play: Bet on #5 Dynamic Pricing (9-2) to win and play her in trifecta boxes with #1 She Feels Pretty (even-money) and #4 Excellent Truth (5-2).