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.

Preakness Stakes Day at Pimlico is here and as usual the card will be packed with stakes races in a fun program of racing and wagering for horseplayers. Of course, the headline event will be the 150^th running of the Preakness Stakes. For my Preakness picks and trifecta plays, please go to ABR’s staff trifecta plays story published on Thursday. For this column, let’s focus on a couple of the very interesting betting races on Pimlico’s Preakness undercard including the Skipat Stakes in race 6 and the Chick Lang Stakes in race 8. If we can cash some bets earlier in the day on these two races, we can build enough bankroll to bet big in the Preakness. Keep in mind that the weather forecast at Pimlico is rainy all week. Best of luck and have a great Preakness Day.

Pimlico, Race 6, $125,000 Skipat Stakes, post time 1:28 p.m. ET

The Skipat Stakes has drawn a seven-horse field of fillies and mares that will sprint six furlongs for a purse of $125,000. This may be a spot where you can bet against a vulnerable favorite with #3 One Magic Philly returning from a 4 ½-month layoff after a subpar finish to what had been a promising 2024 campaign. The more interesting favorite returning from the sidelines in terms of this race is #5 Zeitlos, a horse that won six of nine starts in 2024 including four stakes races topped by the Grade 2 Thoroughbred Club of America Stakes last fall at Keeneland. She has run well in the past when fresh off a layoff, and unlike One Magic Philly, she is already proven on wet tracks with a 2-for-2 record so far. Another proven winner on a wet track is #1 Apple Picker, who is the defending champion in this Skipat Stakes after winning last year’s running with a sharp closing effort on a muddy track. That win raised Apple Picker’s record to 2-for-2 at Pimlico after she also won the $100,000 Weather Vane Stakes in 2023. The only question for Apple Picker, as it is for many of the contenders in this race, is that she’s coming into the Skipat off a layoff. Thankfully long layoffs of more than six months is a category at which trainer Brittany Russell excels with 18 winners from her last 63 starters returning from absences greater than six months. Finally, if taking chances on all these layoff horses is not your forte, perhaps #7 Striker Has Dial is just the horse you are looking for. She is in career-best form currently coming into this race with back-to-back strong allowance optional claiming wins at Aqueduct that earned fast speed figures.

The Play: Bet on #5 Zeitlos (2-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 Apple Picker (8-1) and #7 Striker Has Dial (5-2).

Pimlico, Race 8, $150,000 Chick Lang Stakes, post time 2:48 p.m. ET

Click image to purchase shirt.

An 11-horse field of 3-year-olds is set to race six furlongs in the Chick Lang Stakes. #6 Keep it Easy is back in a sensible sprint spot in this race and is the horse to beat based on his eye-catching 5 ¼-length win in the Ed Brown Stakes at 6 ½ furlongs at Churchill Downs last fall. He exits a loss in his 3-year-old debut in an impossible spot last time in the Grade 2 Coolmore Fountain of Youth Stakes where he not only was asked to go 1 1/16 miles but was also up against the likes of eventual Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve winner Sovereignty. Now, back in a sprint race for the first time this year and with an 87 Beyer Speed Figure earned as a 2-year-old in his back pocket, the 3-year-old version of Keep it Easy will get his first chance to show his stuff in a sprint and should be tough. An opportunity to catch a longshot in the exactas and trifectas exists in this race thanks to #4 Normandy Coast, who is listed at 12-1 odds on the morning line. With some kind of a wet track likely at Pimlico on Saturday – especially early in the card – Normandy Coast’s dominating win last time in the $300,000 Palisades Stakes on a sloppy at Keeneland, where he beat the Wesley Ward-trained favorite Long Neck Paula by 3 ¾ lengths, looks imposing. The Chick Lang field also includes a potential up-and-comer in the 3-year-old sprint division, and that is #7 Faster Gator, who began his career 2-for-2 in Maryland and then just missed by a head last time when second in the $145,000 Bay Shore Stakes at Aqueduct. His trajectory of improvement should be enough to put him squarely in contention in this spot back home in Maryland.

The Play: Bet on #6 Keep it Easy (4-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #4 Normandy Coast (12-1) and #7 Faster Gator (6-1).