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.

Belmont Stakes Day is one of the year’s best days of racing and wagering and this Saturday’s card lives up to expectations with a 14-race program at Saratoga featuring seven graded stakes that should go a long way to sorting out the leaders in several divisions at basically the halfway point in the 2026 season. The Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets is the day’s star attraction, of course, but it won’t be the only game in town because the undercard is also loaded with important races. You can find my Belmont Stakes analysis in the ABR staff trifecta picks article here, and my analysis of the Met Mile can be found in ABR’s 2026 Metropolitan Handicap at a Glance story here. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a deeper dive into a couple of the other standout races on the Belmont Stakes undercard and see if we can cement some of the building blocks we’ll need for a big day this Saturday at Saratoga. Best of luck and enjoy some of the year’s best racing!

Saturday, June 6

Saratoga Race Course, Race 9, $500,000 Jaipur Stakes, post time 4:13 p.m. ET

The Jaipur Stakes has drawn a 10-horse field of turf sprinters looking for a Grade 1 win at 5 ½ furlongs. #5 Reef Runner is back stateside after a lucrative foray to the Middle East where he won the $2 million turf sprint on the Saudi Cup undercard and then finished fourth in the marquee turf sprint on the Dubai World Cup undercard. If all that world travelling hasn’t taken something out of him, he will be tough to beat in this spot with Irad Ortiz Jr. back aboard after also riding in Reef Runner’s Saudi Arabia win. When last seen in the U.S., Reef Runner had reeled off four victories in his last five races of 2025 including three stakes wins in a streak that was interrupted only by a respectable fourth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint. He’s proven effective at distances ranging from five furlongs to 6 ½ furlongs, and he has a nice finishing kick when he turns on the jets in the stretch. #6 Ag Bullet won the 2025 running of the Jaipur Stakes and will be given a chance to defend her title in what will be her first race of 2026 off a six-month layoff. It would have been preferable to see a prep race in her past performances like she had last year when she came in and won this race, but it’s still hard to knock this mare that has finished in the money in both of the last two Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprints (second last year and third by a neck in 2024). Along with the aforementioned top two big names in the race, let’s add a potential upset candidate to our exacta and trifecta tickets with #8 John the Beer Man, a horse in great form taking his first crack against stakes company after winning both of his two recent turf sprint outings in fine fashion with speed figures that say he belongs at this level.

The Play: Bet on #5 Reef Runner (4-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #6 Ag Bullet (3-1), and #8 John the Beer Man (10-1).

Saratoga Race Course, Race 12, $1,000,000 Resorts World Casino Manhattan Stakes, post time 6:11 p.m. ET

One Stripe (Ryan Thompson/Coglianese Photo)

The Grade 1 Manhattan Stakes has attracted a field of nine excellent turf horses ready to roll at 1 3/16 miles on the grass. This is probably the most wide-open of all the stakes races on the card with the exception of the Belmont Stakes, so let’s jump in and make some money. The best way to get paid will be to bet against the morning-line favorite #7 Rhetorical, who, like #5 Deterministic, got to the lead and got away with murder controlling the pace in his last-out win. There is no major knock on either of those horses in this race, but the pace scenario will be different, the distance will be longer, and both horses will offer low odds on the tote board and we can do better. For a higher payoff, let’s go to the first two finishers of this winter’s Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes, #2 Test Score and #8 One Stripe, on our tickets along high-quality European invader #6 Bright Picture, who was a French Group 2 winner two races ago and placed in a Group 1 at Longchamp last time. He has the pace versatility to press the pace, stalk, or come flying late with Flavien Prat aboard. If anyone here can beat Bright Picture it’ll be One Stripe, who finished ahead of Rhetorical in Keeneland’s Grade 1 Maker’s Mark Mile Stakes when second behind lone speed winner Zulu Kingdom. One Stripe was never fully clear and able to stretch his legs when tried to come up the inside with his late run in that race, but he can get up in time to win this race with clear sailing at 1 3/16 miles. Finally, if you like One Stripe, you also should use 12-1 longshot Test Score, who edged One Stripe in the Pegasus Turf and is already a Grade 1 winner at Saratoga from last year’s Saratoga Derby Invitational.

The Play: Bet on #8 One Stripe (6-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #2 Test Score (12-1) and #6 Bright Picture (3-1).