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, Oct. 3 is often referred to as “Super Saturday” as a day when horses in New York, Kentucky, and California race for guaranteed spots in the upcoming Breeders’ Cup on an afternoon where no less than 10 Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series “Win and You’re In” races will be contested in various divisions at Belmont Park, Keeneland, and Santa Anita Park.

For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a trip to the new Belmont Park where a couple of the day’s featured races will be the Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes and the Grade 3 Futurity Stakes on the grass. Both races are loaded with contenders and the winner of each will be on their way to the Breeders’ Cup for their next starts. My analysis of the Grade 2 Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont on Saturday can be found in a separate article on the ABR website. Best of luck and enjoy one of the year’s great days of racing wagering this Saturday.

Saturday, Oct. 3

Belmont Park, Race 7, $250,000 Miss Grillo Stakes, post time 3:22 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes is annually one of the most influential races of the season on the road to the John Deere Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf, and a good field of eight fillies is ready to go 1 1/16 miles this Saturday with a “Win and You’re In” berth at stake. There are several impressive maiden turf winners in the Miss Grillo but perhaps none of them looked better than #2 Golden Siren who effortlessly romped wire-to-wire at Saratoga after setting legitimate 1 1/16-mile fractions for trainer Mark Casse. Her speed figure doesn’t look that sharp until you realize that she was eased up for much of the final furlong after the race had already been decided. There are other pace horses in the field, but Golden Siren looks like the speed of the speed and should go to the lead and go all the way. Another good-looking Spa maiden winner in the field is #6 Domestic Agenda for the familiar Flavien Prat-Chad Brown-Klaravich Stables winning turf connections. She was no secret when sent off as the 1.67-1 favorite in an eight-horse field and she took care of business with a professional up-close stalking win in her career debut. There’s no doubt she can win this or at least hit the board. The X-factor in the race is #4 Fiora, who won her debut going 6 ½-furlongs on this turf course and now stretches out for the first time while wheeling back in just two weeks. Trainer Philip Antonacci’s runners have a strong positive ROI in all relevant categories, and he wins at a high percentage (25%) on turf. He has won with four of his last eight 2-year-old starters and three of his last five horses stretching out from a sprint to a route, and it would be a mistake to think this filly by Into Mischief can’t excel at this added distance.

The Play: Bet on #2 Golden Siren (4-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #4 Fiora (3-1) and #6 Domestic Agenda (2-1).

Belmont Park, Race 10, $200,000 Futurity Stakes, post time 5:06 p.m. ET

Luminous Beauty (Angelo Lieto/NYRA)

The Grade 3 Futurity has attracted a nine-horse field of 2-year-olds ready to roll going six furlongs in search of a guaranteed berth into the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint. There’s a couple of fillies in this field who have chosen this spot instead of the Grade 3 Matron Stakes because this is the race that offers the coveted “Win and You’re In” trip to the Breeders’ Cup. That’s undoubtedly the thought process of trainer Jena Antonucci, whose #4 Luminous Beauty exits a close second by a neck in an 11-horse field last time in the $747,000 Untapable Stakes at Kentucky Downs where she was game in defeat going a half a furlong further. Luminous Beauty has trained lights-out in New York both before and after the Untapable, and she will have a great chance to beat the boys this weekend. Another horse exiting a close near miss at Kentucky Downs is #3 Good to Be King, who has hit the board twice in a row in turf sprint stakes including when second last time in the $748,000 Kentucky Downs Juvenile Sprint. He’s a late runner who will be rallying behind potentially tired rivals in the stretch and is a good bet to make the top three again with Manny Franco picking up the mount. Finally, #7 Just Joe comes into this race off a 6 ½-furlong maiden win atop a 12-horse field at Kentucky Downs in a race that ran in 1:17.1, which was the same final running time as both the Untapable Stakes and the Juvenile Sprint. He’s trained by turf sprint ace trainer George Weaver and gets leading rider Flavien Prat for the mount.

The Play: Bet on #4 Luminous Beauty (4-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #3 Good to Be King (5-2) and #7 Just Joe (5-1).