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, May 9

The 2026 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve is in the books, and racing fans now get a one-week break until the Triple Crown trail resumes in next weekend’s Preakness Stakes at Laurel Park. But wait! There is still a Triple Crown-relevant race on the docket this Saturday with the running of the Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes, which is often used by horses as a prep race for next month’s Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets. For this weekend’s winners, let’s go to Aqueduct and handicap a pair of Belmont at the Big A stakes races – the Peter Pan Stakes and the Grade 2 Ruffian Stakes for fillies and mares. These races project to be ruled by the favorites, but if we can bet them the right way we will be well on our way to a big day at the Big A. Best of luck.

Belmont at the Big A, Race 7, $200,000 Ruffian Stakes, post time 4:09 p.m. ET

A field of seven mostly veteran fillies and mares takes to the track for the Ruffian Stakes going one mile on the main track. Instead of taking one of the many experienced horses in this race, let’s go with the new face in the crowd: #5 Inefficiency trained by Chad Brown with Flavien Prat aboard. She comes into her first career stakes test with only two races of experience, but she has looked like dynamite both times so far with two wins at this track and distance by a combined margin of 12 ¼ lengths. Maybe you would doubt Inefficiency’s ability to step up in class and win in a spot like this if the trainer was any other than Chad Brown, who just pulled-off a similar type of feat last weekend when his Always a Runner stepped up and won the Grade 1 Longines Kentucky Oaks in just her third lifetime start. Morning-line favorite #3 Eunomia is hard to ignore in this spot and will be tough to beat based on her fine form in five recent dirt races where she posted three wins, a second, and a third. She exits a runner-up finish by a neck in Keeneland’s Grade 2 Baird Doubledogdare Stakes and seems perfectly suited for the Ruffian’s one-mile distance. Finally, the horse in the race that can give your wagers a much-needed value boost is #1 Cassiar at 10-1 odds on the morning line. She beat #7 Dry Powder at this track and distance last year and finished a solid second last time behind multiple stakes winner Five G when needing a race at Gulfstream Park in her first start back from a six-month layoff. She’ll be ready to roll in this second race off the long layoff as a live overlay.

The Play: Bet on #5 Inefficiency (3-1) to win and play her in trifecta boxes along with #1 Cassiar (10-1), and #3 Eunomia (6-5).

Belmont at the Big A, Race 9, $200,000 Peter Pan Stakes, post time 5:11 p.m. ET

Trendsetter (Coady Media)

Belmont Stakes hopefuls take to the track for the Peter Pan going 1 1/8 miles on the main track Saturday at the Big A. The race seems to be divided between three horses that loom as legitimate contenders and three horses that are just taking a shot (with one of those, #4 Bull by the Horns, likely to scratch). Let’s concentrate on trifectas and bet to win on the horse that is likely to offer the best odds of the three main contenders, #1 Trendsetter. He exits a 2 ½-length win in last month’s Grade 3 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes at Keeneland where he easily defeated The Hell We Did and Corona de Oro, who are now both targeting the Preakness Stakes. Trendsetter got a good stalking pace setup to win the Lexington and should get another similar good trip off a potentially hot pace. #5 Talk to Me Jimmy flopped last time against perhaps better competition in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by Resorts World Casino, but he’s already a proven winner at this track and distance from back in February when he won the $200,000 Withers Stakes in wire-to-wire fashion by 11 lengths over a field that included next-out Grade 1 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes runner-up Ottinho. Which version of Talk to Me Jimmy will show up here? You’ll have to settle for 9-5 odds in order to find out. The morning-line favorite in the Peter Pan is #3 Growth Equity, a Chad Brown up-and-comer who is exiting a big last-out maiden win at one mile where he earned this race’s best Beyer Speed Figure. He has a shot to step up and be successful against this field.

The Play: Bet on #1 Trendsetter (3-1) to win and play him in trifecta boxes along with #3 Growth Equity (6-5) and #5 Talk to Me Jimmy (9-5).