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.

Maryland racing takes center stage this weekend as the Triple Crown trail takes a detour to Laurel Park, which will stand in for Pimlico as the host of the Preakness Stakes for one time and one time only. The second leg of the Triple Crown will be the headline race of a 14-race program at Laurel on Saturday, but really the entire card will be one big showcase attraction for horseplayers. For my Preakness strategy, you can go to this America’s Best Racing’s staff trifecta picks story. For my Weekend Winners column, let’s instead focus on a couple of the best races on the Saturday Preakness undercard at Laurel. We can build some momentum for the big race with a couple of winners while also kicking off the Daily Double and Pick 3 that end with the Preakness in race 13. Enjoy racing and wagering from Laurel this weekend. Best of luck!

Saturday, May 16

Laurel Park, Race 11, $150,000 Gallorette Stakes, post time 4:53 p.m. ET

The Grade 3 Gallorette Stakes has attracted a field of eight fillies and mares ready to race 1 1/16 miles on turf. Top turf trainers Chad Brown and Graham Motion each have two horses entered in the field, but the race sets up for a minor upset by #8 Awesome Czech who returns to the grass for the first time since last fall for trainer Horacio De Paz. When last seen on the turf, Awesome Czech was enjoying a strong second half of 2025 with stakes wins in Saratoga’s Yaddo Stakes and Aqueduct’s Ticonderoga Staes as well as a second in Churchill Downs’s $289,000 Cardinal Stakes. A repeat of any of those performances on Saturday would be enough to beat this field. #5 Austere is back in Maryland for after finishing second in this same race last year at Pimlico. She is versatile from a pace standpoint and should once again factor into the outcome this year in what will be her second race off a layoff with a Keeneland prep race under her belt for trainer Brendan Walsh. Finally, the best of the four Brown/Motion entrants in this field is likely to be #7 Child of the Moon with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard for Brown. She exits a loss in the same tough Keeneland race as Austere but has a lot of upside coming from off the pace based on her up-close finish two races ago in the Grade 2 Hillsborough Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs where she was beaten less than a length by Destino d’Oro.

The Play: Bet on #8 Awesome Czech (5-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #5 Austere (7-2), and #7 Child of the Moon (5-2).

Laurel Park, Race 12, $125,000 Jim McKay Turf Sprint Stakes, post time 5:52 p.m. ET

The Jim McKay Turf Sprint has drawn an 11-horse field ready to dash 5 ½ furlongs. #11 Had to Have Him exits a sixth-place finish but can turn the tables on horses who beat him last time when he needed a prep race outing in return from a six-month layoff. Had to Have Him won multiple stakes races on this turf course last year including the Maryland Million Turf Sprint and the Laurel Dash, and the gelding is sitting on a rebound win for high-percentage local connections. He is the best and most accomplished turf sprinter in the field and will be ready to improve in his second race off the layoff as an 8-1 overlay in morning-line odds. #8 Outlaw Kid is another logical contender in this race after returning from his winter layoff with a win at this course and distance last time in the $100,000 King T. Leatherbury Stakes where he beat six of these same rivals, including Had to Have Him. Now he looms a threat to make it two wins in a row for turf sprint ace trainer George Weaver. #3 Jean Valjean was another one of Outlaw Kid’s beaten rivals in the Leatherbury Stakes when he clearly needed a race in his return from a year-and-a-half layoff. Jean Valjean came back to win his next start when he squeezed in a Laurel turf sprint in-between that race and this one, and he made his rivals miserable when he crushed the field while equaling this field’s best last-race Beyer Speed Figure that is right in line with other low-to-mid 90s turf sprint speed figures in Jean Valjean’s past performances.

The Play: Bet on #11 Had to Have Him (8-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #3 Jean Valjean (5-1) and #8 Outlaw Kid (5-1).