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.

This Saturday is one of the premier days of the annual Saratoga summer season with the running of the $1 million Grade 1 Whitney Stakes headlining a fantastic 14-race program at The Spa that also includes three other Grade 1 races. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a closer look at two of the day’s supporting top-level feature races on the card as we gear up for Magnitude, Sovereignty, Nitrogen, and the others to do battle in the feature race. If we can pick the winners of the Fourstardave Stakes and the Saratoga Derby Stakes Presented by Qatar Racing, we can build a bankroll and send it back in on the marquee event in the Whitney, where I’m backing Magnitude for the win. Best of luck and enjoy a great day of racing and wagering Saturday at The Spa.

Saturday, Aug. 8

Saratoga, Race 10, $750,000 Fourstardave Stakes, post time 5:14 p.m. ET

The $750,000 Fourstardave Stakes lives up to its Grade 1 billing this year, and then some, with a very strong seven-horse field going one mile on the grass with a berth in the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile Presented by PDJF up for grabs. The Fourstardave drew both #5 Deterministic and #7 Lagynos into the field, and that duo along with last weekend’s Arlington Million Stakes winner Burnham Square have established themselves as the top three horses in the national turf division this year to date. The other horses in this field are top caliber turfers, too, including #1 Rhetorical and #4 Classic Q, and also #2 Mi Bago and #3 Zulu Kingdom, who both exit a dead heat for win in Saratoga’s prep for this race last month, the Grade 3 Kelso Stakes. Still, with all that firepower, this race should come down to a battle between Deterministic, the defending Fourstardave champ and winner of five straight, and Lagynos, who also is a winner of five straight turf stakes races after sweeping Churchill Downs’ middle-distance turf features this spring and summer. Both horses make a worthy win selections here, but the nod for the top spot goes to Lagynos based entirely on the projected pace of this race, which on paper seems to be overloaded with killers who mostly all want to be on or close to the lead. If an expected fast pace develops, it should help the horses that will be rating off the pace including Zulu Kingdom, the closing #6 Capitol Hill, and especially Lagynos. Look for Deterministic to be the survivor of the pace scrum, and for a stretch battle to then ensue against the oncoming Lagynos in the final furlong. It should be one heckuva race.

The Play: Bet on #7 Lagynos (5-1) to win and play him in an exacta box along with #5 Deterministic (2-1).

Saratoga, Race 11, $750,000 Saratoga Derby Stakes Presented by Qatar Racing, post time 5:52 p.m. ET

West End Kid (Walter Wlodarczyk/NYRA)

The Grade 1 Saratoga Derby is not the glamour event among Saturday’s four Grade 1s at The Spa, but it sure looks like a very good betting race boasting a 10-horse field loaded with contenders ready to race 1 3/16 miles on the turf. The pick is #10 West End Kid, who was just a nose away from coming into this race on a four-race winning streak after just missing last time out in the Grade 1 Belmont Derby Stakes. West End Kid earlier had won Saratoga’s Grade 3 Pennine Pidge Stakes with a sharp pace-pressing performance and also has demonstrated versatility as a horse that also can rally from further behind the leaders. Whatever it takes to win Saturday at this 1 3/16-mile distance, West End Kid should be Johnny on the spot. #4 Title Role beat several of these rivals last time in the aforementioned Saratoga Derby where he had just enough to hold on by a nose at 1 1/8 miles after getting away with murder up close to a slow pace that stymied closers such as #3 Remember Mamba and #5 Pacific Avenue. Before you abandon ship on Title Role at this added distance, however, take a look around this field and realize that he once again will enjoy a pace advantage in another race full of late runners. Title Role should be able to hold on for a share. To round out the trifectas, let’s use Pacific Avenue, who finished seventh but was beaten just 1 ½ lengths when pace compromised in the Belmont Derby. He was flying in the stretch at a shorter distance, now adds blinkers in an attempt to race closer to the pace, and picks up Irad Ortiz Jr. for the mount. He could be in a better spot when he launches his late rally this time and that potentially could be enough to turn the tables.

The Play: Bet on #10 West End Kid (7-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #4 Title Role (9-2), and #5 Pacific Avenue (5-1).