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.
   

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   Saturday, June 21

This Saturday is the biggest day of the year in Ohio racing as Thistledown hosts Ohio Derby day, a day of five stakes races including the Grade 3 $500,000 Ohio Derby. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a closer look at the featured race plus the headline event on the undercard, the $250,000 Lady Jacqueline Stakes for fillies and mares. As the final two races on the 12-race card, these two races will be the lynchpins for any type of profitable day for handicappers. Let’s hit the exactas, trifectas, and late Daily Double and go home winners Saturday at Thistledown. Enjoy!

Thistledown, Race 11, $250,000 Lady Jacqueline Stakes, post time 5:35 p.m. ET

The $250,000 Lady Jacqueline Stakes drew an eight-horse field of fillies and mares set to compete at 1 1/8 miles. The distance of the race is a big factor for handicappers because about half the field can possibly be eliminated from consideration based on the mismatch of those horses at the 1 1/8-mile distance. The race should come down to three horses, including two invaders and one local runner. #6 Where’s My Ring comes to town with Mike Smith aboard and has been facing some of the world’s best fillies, like Thorpedo Anna and Raging Sea, in recent losses and now seems to have found a more realistic spot to win. She’s already a graded stakes winner last year in the Grade 3 Gazelle Stakes at this distance at Aqueduct and, more recently, she showed her ability again with a 12 ¼-length Oaklawn score with a 103 Beyer Speed Figure. #7 Peignoir is a filly with two career wins at 1 1/8 miles who won big two races ago when she blew away a $135,800 Keeneland allowance field by 7 ¼ lengths. She has run competitively in three recent nongraded stakes races similar to this race but against arguably even stronger fields, including last time when she was fourth behind Candied and a graded stakes-caliber field in the $125,000 Allaire DuPont Distaff Stakes on Preakness weekend. Jose Ortiz picks up the mount. Finally, if you are looking for the local hope, the realistic possibility lies with #5 Candlelight Hours, who could really bump up the value of your exotics if she can run a big race Saturday at 12-1 odds. She owns 10 career wins, 18 exacta finishes, and 24 in-the-money finishes in 25 lifetime outings at Thistledown. She owns two wins, a place, and a show in four races at this distance, including a 2023 win in the $100,000 Ohio Distaff.

The Play: Bet on #5 Candlelight Hours (12-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #6 Where’s My Ring (2-1) and Peignoir (9-5). Start the late daily double by playing all three of these horses in Race 11 to #4 McAfee in Race 12.

Thistledown, Race 12, $500,000 Ohio Derby, post time 6:20 p.m. ET

Ohio Derby contender McAfee (Coady Media)

Saturday’s headline horse racing event is the Grade 3 Ohio Derby, which has attracted a 10-horse field set to run 1 1/8 miles. The big name in the race is perhaps #6 Clever Again, who exits a ninth-place finish in the Preakness where he was part of the famous incident at the top of the stretch involving eventual winner Journalism. Clever Again had led but was already finished and had started to retreat at that point in the race. He has extreme upside potential, but that Preakness performance makes him questionable versus this field which contains at least two speed challengers in #9 Master Controller and #10 Mo Plex, who won’t make his task easy on Saturday. Clever Again probably will hold on for a share but should get softened up enough early and get caught by someone late. That someone should prove to be #4 McAfee, who added blinkers for the first time and finally began to live up to his stakes potential last time out when second by three-quarters of a length in the Grade 3 Peter Pan Stakes. He’s a half-brother (same dam [mother], different sire [father]) to 2024 Horse of the Year Thorpedo Anna and finally seems ready to come into his own. John Velazquez is in town for the mount. #2 Chunk of Gold doesn’t have any early speed at all and has made a living by picking up pieces late and rallying for second in races like the Grade 2 Fasig-Tipton Risen Star Stakes and the Grade 2 Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby. He should come running late for a share.

The Play: Bet on #4 McAfee (3-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Chunk of Gold (7-2) and #6 Clever Again (9-5).