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, April 3

One of the surest ways to know that spring is finally in the air in New York is the arrival of Wood Memorial Stakes day at Aqueduct. The long, cold winter has come to an end and big-time racing is returning to the Big Apple. This Saturday, Aqueduct will host a 13-race card that includes five stakes races topped by the final stop on New York’s road to the Triple Crown: the Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by Resorts World Casino. For this weekend’s selections, let’s focus on making money on the Wood Memorial as well as the undercard stakes in the race preceding it, the $150,000 Excelsior Stakes.

Aqueduct, Race 11, $150,000 Excelsior Stakes, 5:38 p.m. ET

The Excelsior Stakes has drawn an eight-horse field of older horses ready to race 1 ¼ miles on the main track for a purse of $150,000. #8 Masmak has yet to run this distance but should eat up this extra real estate based on his recent form that has been great at 1 1/8 miles while racking up a record of four wins and a second in five races so far at Aqueduct. He’s making his stakes debut but is still improving and should be better than ever at 1 ¼ miles. #3 Batten Down, #6 Phileas Fogg, and #7 Mama’s Gold are all going to have their hands full with each other on what could turn into a fast pace that won’t help any of them. That type of a pace scenario would benefit #4 Crupi, a horse who doesn’t show much recent form but who has been crying out for more distance and will finally get it today. He was the winner of last year’s Grade 2 Suburban Stakes at this distance and was even good enough to finish second in the 2024 Whitney Stakes, so he is capable of getting the job done in a spot like this, at least for second. Finally, one more horse to add onto your bets to boost the value of your exotics tickets is #2 Classic Catch. He is making the distance progression from one mile to 1 1/8 miles and now to 1 ¼ miles since returning from a layoff and already proved earlier in his career that his best results have come at the extended distance of this race.

The Play: Bet on #8 Masmak (5-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Classic Catch (15-1) and #4 Crupi (4-1).

Aqueduct, Race 12, $750,000 Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by Resorts World Casino,  6:10 p.m. ET

Wood Memorial entrant Hill Road (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Grade 2 Wood Memorial drew a loaded 12-horse field in what should be a wide-open betting race for 3-year-olds hoping to advance to next month’s Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. The field is filled with contenders and the top challengers in this field are #1 Rodriguez, #2 Captain Cook, and #7 Grande. All have similar pace-pressing running styles and any of the three could choose to take the first run at making the lead. The preference among that trio is Rodriguez, who invades from the West Coast barn of trainer Bob Baffert with solid speed figures that stack up well against today’s field after facing arguably the best 3-year-olds in the country in recent losses in the Grade 3 Robert B. Lewis Stakes and the Grade 2 DK Horse San Felipe Stakes against the likes of Citizen Bull, Barnes, and Journalism. Both Captain Cook and Grande have the distinction of already having won at this 1 1/8-mile distance in their last races. Captain Cook’s Beyer Speed Figure for his win in Aqueduct’s $250,000 Withers Stakes was far better than what Grande earned in his Gulfstream allowance win last time out, but Grande is still loaded with upside at this point in his career so both of that pair warrant inclusion in exactas and trifectas.

The Play: Bet on #1 Rodriguez (5-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with and #2 Captain Cook (7-2) and Grande (5-1).