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.

Things are really heating up in New York this weekend as Belmont at the Big A begins to roll out its fall Breeders’ Cup prep races this Saturday. The 12-race program will feature five graded stakes races including important features like the Grade 1 Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Stakes and the Grade 2 Woodward Stakes. Not to be overlooked, this column will take a closer look at two more of Saturday’s stakes at Belmont at the Big A for sprinters: the Grade 2 Gallant Bloom Stakes and the Grade 3 Vosburgh Stakes Presented by Army Mule. Let’s have some fun and pick some winners in New York this weekend, best of luck!

Belmont at the Big A, Race 8, $250,000 Gallant Bloom Stakes, post time 4:10 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Gallant Bloom Stakes has drawn a field of nine filly and mare sprinters ready to race 6 ½ furlongs as they prep for possible starts the PNC Bank Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint Nov. 2 at Del Mar. #2 Impel is coming off back-to-back wins including a victory last time in the $200,000, one-mile Groupie Doll Stakes at Ellis Park for trainer Brad Cox. She scratched out of the Open Mind Stakes at Churchill Downs on Sept. 13 in order to point for this race instead and has a great shot to handle this cutback in distance. Flavien Prat picks up the mount. Prat and Cox have been a formidable jockey/trainer combo at Aqueduct dating back to last year with 12 wins in the last 20 races (60%) where they’ve teamed up. #1 R Disaster is one heck of a racehorse that has never yet finished out of the exacta in any of her 11 lifetime starts including three graded stakes seconds. She has maintained good form on both fast and wet tracks and is as classy as she is consistent. Finally, #5 Sterling Silver is a New York-bred who has already proven capable in her career of having success against open company as she did last year when she finished third in this same race and earlier this year when able to run second on this track in the Grade 2 Ruffian Stakes.

The Play: Bet on #6 Impel (6-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 R Disaster (3-1) and #5 Sterling Silver (7-2).

Belmont at the Big A, Race 9, $200,000 Vosburgh Stakes Presented by Army Mule, post time 4:41 p.m. ET

Nash (Coady Media)

The Grade 3 Vosburgh Stakes has drawn a field of nine horses set to race seven furlongs for an automatic Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series “Win and You’re In” berth into the Cygames Breeders’ Cup Sprint. It’s a great betting race because six of the nine horses in the field are listed between 5-2 and 6-1 odds on the morning line, making this a real toss-up. This is also a good race for bettors because the mid-odds horses seem to have better chances to win than the favorites starting with the horse in the field with the biggest upside, #2 Nash, who earned a 108 Beyer Speed Figure for his six-furlong sloppy track win at Churchill Downs two races ago. He also has a good career record on fast tracks and had an excuse for his loss last time when he got off to a bad start in the Alfred G. Vanderbilt Stakes against an extraordinarily tough field at Saratoga. He has won at longer distances than this so seven furlongs looks right up his alley here with Flavien Prat picking up the mount. #6 Baby Yoda actually got claimed last time, which would look like a genius move by new trainer Robert Falcone Jr. if he could pull of the win in this spot. The gelding overcame a bad start to win at seven furlongs at Saratoga last time and when last seen on this track at Aqueduct three races ago he absolutely blew the doors off a 6 ½-furlong race that ran in a time of 1:13.4. The morning-line favorite in this field is #1 Scotland, but he seems to run much better at Saratoga than at Aqueduct. Therefore, let’s include another mid-priced contender in our bets with #8 Patriot Spirit, who just missed in the longer $186,000 Knicks Go Stakes at Churchill Downs two race ago and then won big last time in a seven-furlong stakes race at Colonial Downs.

The Play: Bet on #2 Nash (6-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #6 Baby Yoda (6-1) and #8 Patriot Spirit (5-1).