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.

The Keeneland Race Course spring meet marches on this weekend with more great racing and wagering from bluegrass country in Lexington, Ky. Keeneland’s Saturday April 11 program includes a pair of graded stakes races, and for this Weekend’s Winners, let’s take a closer look at both the Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes and the Grade 3 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes. If we can pick the winners of these two feature races late in the card, we will be well on our way to a lucky day at Keeneland. Best of luck.

Saturday, April 11

Keeneland, Race 9, $650,000 Jenny Wiley Stakes, post time 5:16 p.m. ET

The Grade 1 Jenny Wiley Stakes has drawn a 10-horse field of fillies and mares set to race 1 1/16 miles on the grass. Last year’s 3-year-old filly turf division was dominated by three or four horses and one of them was #7 Lush Lips, who kept the winning ways going when she won her 4-year-old seasonal debut last time in Gulfstream Park’s Grade 3 Honey Fox Stakes Presented by MyRacehorse. Lush Lips has won three of her last five races dating back to last year including most notably Keeneland’s Grade 1 Queen Elizabeth II Challenge Cup Stakes Presented by Dixiana. It all adds up to a Jenny Wiley Stakes favorite that will be extraordinarily tough to beat as the day’s best bet. Other contenders in this race are good too, and those horses can complete your trifecta plays even if you go all-in on Lush Lips. #8 Destino d’Oro is red-hot at the moment. She comes into this race off back-to-back Grade 2 wins so far this year for trainer Brad Cox and is the most obvious challenger vs. Lush Lips. Destino d’Oro loves this distance and will be flying late, but she’ll need to come from further back off the pace than Lush Lips and may have a tough time catching the favorite. If you are talking about Grade 1 fillies and mares on the turf, you can’t fail to mention trainer Chad Brown who is a driving force at the top levels of the division. He will make his presence felt here with #5 Dynamic Pricing and/or #10 Segesta, a pair of Grade 1 winners who will be making their seasonal debuts this Saturday. Dynamic Pricing, winner of last year’s Just a Game Stakes Presented by Resolute Racing at Saratoga, will be closing from far back and could be a threat if ready off the layoff, while 2025 Matriarch Stakes winner Segesta will be more forwardly placed from a pace perspective, and will try to take advantage of the tactical advantage by getting the jump on the other top contenders.

The Play: Bet on #7 Lush Lips (5-2) to win and key her on top in trifectas above #5 Dynamic Pricing (6-1), #8 Destino d’Oro (4-1), and #10 Segesta (7-2). Play the straight daily double encompassing the two stakes races by singling Lush Lips along with Confessional in race 10.

Keeneland, Race 10, $400,000 Stonestreet Lexington Stakes, post time 5:48 p.m. ET

Confessional (Coady Media)

Saturday’s Lexington Stakes is the final official race of the season on the road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve, and while this year’s field will not yield a Derby starter, the winner or top finishers in this race may target later races such as the Preakness Stakes or Belmont Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets. Eleven 3-year-old hopefuls will line up for this 1 1/16-mile test, and the standout looks like #10 Confessional for trainer Brad Cox with Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard. He finished third last time in the $500,000 Virginia Derby Presented by New Kent County in a good rebound effort after showing a lot of promise earlier in his first two career races. If Cox doesn’t win this with Confessional, he’ll probably win it with #9 Ezum, a horse that exits a 19 ½-length maiden win going a mile at Colonial Downs earlier on the March 14 Virginia Derby card. He’ll try two turns for the first time. If it’s not a horse trained by Cox in the winner’s circle on Saturday, then it’s going to be an upset, and if it’s going to be an upset, the most probable other horse in the race is #11 I Did I Did, who ran a promising fourth against some solid horses last fall in the Grade 3 Street Sense Stakes at Churchill Downs and more recently showed a new dimension of early speed in his last race which was a second-place finish by a neck at Colonial Downs.

The Play: Bet on #10 Confessional (7-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #9 Ezum (2-1) and #11 I Did I Did (10-1).