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.

Churchill Downs, Race 11, $1,000,000 Stephen Foster Stakes, post time 6:03 p.m. ET

A star-studded field of seven older horses has been assembled for a stellar 2025 renewal of the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Stakes at 1 1/8 miles on the main track. Besides star power, the other thing that makes this year’s Stephen Foster such a good race is that you can make a legitimate case to win for six of the seven horses. What this race seems to lack is a legitimate pace and that will not help the chances of the heavy-hitting closers like 2024 Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic winner #4 Sierra Leone and 2025 Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline winner #6 Hit Show. They’re both exceptional horses capable of overcoming pace issues, but nevertheless, if there’s only a moderate pace it won’t help either one of them and might limit them to minor placings. The 2024 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve winner #5 Mystik Dan had a solid return to form last time when he won the Grade 3 Blame Stakes and he clearly loves Churchill Downs, but he still has yet to ever run a race as fast as the best career races of Sierra Leone or others such as #3 Skippylongstocking and #1 First Mission, whose highest lifetime speed figures are way better. First Mission has struggled with consistency in his career but has run some big past races at Churchill Downs and exits perhaps his best-ever race when he cruised to victory in the Oaklawn Handicap. He has enough tactical speed to stay close to the pace and if he shows up with another similar effort as last time he will be tough to pass in the stretch. The other major contender in this race that hasn’t been mentioned yet is #2 Mindframe, the 4-year-old wild card who is now making his third start back in a career reboot after demonstrating immense promise in his brief 3-year-old campaign where he finished second in both the Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets and the NYRA Bets Haskell Stakes. He exits a Grade 1 win in the seven-furlong Churchill Downs Stakes Presented by Ford and is clearly also suited for this longer 1 1/8-mile distance at which he will be able to race much closer to the pace.

The Play: Bet on #1 First Mission (4-1) to win and play him in an exacta box with #2 Mindframe (7-2). If you prefer trifectas, key First Mission and Mindframe in the top two positions on top of #3 Skippylongstocking (6-1), #4 Sierra Leone (5-2), #5 Mystik Dan (3-1) and #6 Hit Show (9-2) in third, or you can play those horses in the middle slot in trifectas as a hedge for your First Mission/Mindframe exacta box. Start the late daily double by playing First Mission and Mindframe in race 11 to your pick(s) in race 12.

Churchill Downs, Race 12, $250,000 American Derby, post time 6:32 p.m. ET

A fascinating 10-horse field of 3-year-olds has been entered in the $250,000 American Derby in the final race of the day going 1 1/16 miles on the turf. Two of the runners in this race are switching back to the grass after taking their shots in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve last time out, and those horses are the ones to beat. The connections of #2 Flying Mohawk have indicated all along that they believe the horse is meant for the turf, and the horse demonstrated that with solid wins on the turf late last year and at the beginning of this year. Flying Mohawk also added a second-place finish in the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks on an all-weather track which demonstrated he has ability at the stakes level. Back on the grass, Flying Mohawk should be able to strut his best stuff. The other Kentucky Derby graduate in the field is #3 Tiztastic, who is best known for winning the Grade 2 Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby but who also had gone 2-for-2 in turf races earlier in his career including a win in last year’s $998,000 Juvenile Mile Stakes at Kentucky Downs.

The Play: Bet on #2 Flying Mohawk (8-1) to win and play him in an exacta box with #3 Tiztastic (5-2). Use both horses to round-out the late daily doubles you started in race 11.