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, July 19

The second weekend of the 2025 Saratoga Race Course season will feature some standout Spa racing and wagering, including Saturday’s 12-race card that will be headlined by three graded stakes races. For this weekend’s winners, let’s concentrate on Saturday’s two standout sprint events – the Grade 3 Caress Stakes on the turf and the Grade 2 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap on the dirt. Enjoy racing this weekend from Saratoga and best of luck.

Saratoga Race Course, Race 9, $175,000 Caress Stakes, post time 5:04 p.m. ET

The Grade 3 Caress Stakes has drawn a field of nine filly and mare sprinters ready to race 5 ½ furlongs on the grass, and in case of rain there are also three main-track-only entrants, one of which is actually named #12 Caress. The principal contenders in this race are all exiting last month’s Grade 2 Intercontinental Stakes at this course and distance won by #6 Pipsy, who was able to establish the early lead and had plenty left in the stretch to hold on for a front-running win. Pipsy again seems like the best speed in this bunch and will have a great chance for a repeat victory. The beaten favorite in the Intercontinental was #7 Future Is Now who came into the race on a three-race winning streak and was the defending winner of the 2024 Intercontinental. She could win this with her best effort, but it should be noted that an opening on the rail the size of the Grand Canyon unfolded for her to make a stretch rally last time but she was unable to get past Pipsy late. The horse with the best chance at an upset in this field and who could certainly bump up the value of your exactas and trifectas is #3 Twirling Queen. She finished ninth in the Intercontinental but needed that race in her return from five months on the sidelines and will be better here in her second race after the layoff. She won last year’s $150,000 Coronation Cup Stakes at Saratoga and also owns turf sprint stakes wins at Churchill Downs and Del Mar on her career resume.

The Play: Bet on #6 Pipsy (7-2) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #3 Twirling Queen (12-1) and #7 Future Is Now (5-2).

Saratoga Race Course, Race 11, $400,000 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap, post time 6:13 p.m. ET

Nakatomi winning 2024 Vanderbilt. (Susie Raisher/NYRA)

The Grade 2 Vanderbilt Handicap brings together a field of eight top sprinters who will battle it out at six furlongs. #8 Nakatomi won the 2024 Vanderbilt Handicap with his career-best effort and could repeat if he can show up with another similar big effort like he did earlier this year when he just missed by a neck in the $2 million Dubai Golden Shaheen. If there’s a hot pace in this race, which seems assured with #1 Skelly and the speedy #7 Baby Yoda in the field, Nakatomi will be the most likely beneficiary. Nakatomi will need to turn the tables on both #4 Mullikin and #5 Book’em Danno, who both beat him last time out in the Grade 3 True North Stakes. Mullikin and Book’em Danno are past Grade 1 sprint winners at Saratoga, with Mullikin winning last year’s Grade 1 Forego Stakes and Book’em Danno taking last year’s Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes Presented by Mohegan Sun. Both horses have been facing top competition in all their recent races and both of them should be able to secure trifecta spots in the Vanderbilt.

The Play: Bet on #8 Nakatomi (9-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #4 Mullikin (7-2) and #5 Book’em Danno (5-2).