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 23

It’s Memorial Day weekend and some of the season’s top racing and wagering is happening at the Belmont at the Big A and Churchill Downs meets, which both host excellent weekend cards Saturday through Monday. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a look at Saturday’s featured races from New York and Kentucky and kick off a successful holiday weekend of racing and wagering with a winning day. Best of luck!

Belmont at the Big A, Race 7, $150,000 Paradise Creek Stakes, 4:09 p.m. ET

Saturday’s feature race at Belmont at the Big A is the Paradise Creek Stakes for 3-year-old turf sprinters ready to run six furlongs on the grass. There’s some rain in the forecast, so let’s hope the nine-horse field holds up and the race stays on the grass. #3 Intricate Spirit is coming off a sub-par effort in his last race and therefore could go off at a fair price, but he should loom large against this field based on his best efforts. Intricate Spirit was a Grade 3 winner at this track and distance in last fall’s Futurity Stakes, and he adds blinkers for this race as turf sprint ace trainer Miguel Clement tries to get him back on track. Based on his best form, he’s the horse to beat. #2 Track Tiger is entered outside of California for the first time in his career after posting four exacta finishes in his seven lifetime starts to date, including a front-running win on Santa Anita’s downhill turf course two races ago and a runner-up finish on the same course last time in the $100,000 John Shear Stakes. Track Tiger also ran a good effort on the dirt early in his career for trainer Doug O’Neill. #4 Capanaparo had a promising start to his career as a 2-year-old last August in a turf sprint race at Saratoga, and perhaps he’s been wanting to get back on the grass ever since. In the interim he broke his maiden on the Aqueduct main track at six furlongs last fall, so he should also factor into the outcome of this race if it comes off the turf.

The Play: Bet on #3 Intricate Spirit (3-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #2 Track Tiger (9-2), and #4 Capanaparo (20-1).

Churchill Downs, Race 9, $250,000 Keertana Stakes, 4:56 p.m. ET

Keertana Stakes entrant Sultana (Susie Raisher/Coglianese Photo)

The Keertana Stakes has drawn a field of eight distance-running fillies and mares set to race 1 ½ miles on the turf. You can make a legitimate case for five or six of these horses to win the race, but let’s go with #1 Sultana as our top pick. She comes in riding high on the three-race winning streak dating to last fall and she won her 2026 debut last time when she caught front-running #3 Arya Stark by a nose in the Grade 3 Orchid Stakes going 1 ½ miles on the turf at Gulfstream Park. Sultana has never run a bad race and seems to be really coming into her own now as the distances of her races have increased, making this the perfect spot for her to extend her winning streak to four. Speaking of Arya Stark, if you like Sultana, you’ve also got to use her in your exactas and trifectas since the pair was just noses apart last time out at this same distance. Depending on whether or not #6 Virgin Colada sprints out to the lead again today like she did last time before being pulled up out of the race, Arya Stark could find herself alone on the lead controlling the pace in this race and that alone makes her extremely dangerous. Finally, the horse in the field with the best last-race Beyer Speed Figure is #4 Golden Sunshine, who shined brightly last time at 25-1 odds with a second-place finish in Keeneland’s 1 ½-mile Grade 3 Bewitch Stakes Presented by Keeneland Sales in her return to the turf. That followed a pair of solid races on Turfway Park’s all-weather surface over the winter. Perhaps she has truly found her niche now going long on the grass.

The Play: Bet on #1 Sultana (3-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #3 Arya Stark (9-5) and #4 Golden Sunshine (4-1).