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.

Monmouth Park takes center stage on the horse racing landscape this weekend as the New Jersey track hosts its Haskell Preview Day where four stakes races will headline Saturday’s 10-race card. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a closer look at a pair of Monmouth’s featured races on Haskell Preview Day. If we can pick the stakes winners, we will be well on our way to a fun and profitable day of racing and wagering at the Jersey shore. Fast times are coming your way. Best of luck this Saturday.

Saturday, June 14

Monmouth Park, Race 5, $125,000 NYRA Bets Pegasus Stakes, post time 2:52 p.m. ET

The Pegasus Stakes has drawn a field of six 3-year-olds ready to run 1 1/16 miles on the main track. According to the morning-line odds, despite the small field size of the race, handicappers still will have a chance to cash on a good-priced winner with #3 Star Sweeper, a horse that woke up last time in the local $95,000 Long Branch Stakes and just missed winning by a head in second while 7 ½ lengths clear of the third-place horse. Some of the favorites in this field are coming out of maiden races and will offer worse odds than Star Sweeper, who is already a stakes-placed two-time winner. The other horse to beat in the race is #4 Schoolyardsuperman, the 8-5 morning-line favorite that exits a solid runner-up finish by a length at Aqueduct with a big 99 Beyer Speed Figure after finishing mid-pack the time before in the $200,000 Withers Stakes. Chad Brown trains and Flavien Prat has the mount. The various recent maiden winners in this field all have potential, but you can’t use everyone in such a small field so let’s concentrate on exactas using the top two choices.

The Play: Bet on #3 Star Sweeper (5-1) to win and play him in an exacta box with #4 Schoolyardsuperman (8-5).

Monmouth Park, Race 9, $150,000 Salvator Mile Stakes, post time 5:01 p.m. ET

Saturday’s featured race at Monmouth is the Grade 3 Salvator Mile Stakes, which has drawn a high-quality nine-horse field making for an excellent race to watch and wager on. This is another of Monmouth’s Saturday stakes races ripe for an upset thanks to #3 Point Dume, who would be a tremendous value if he holds up at or near his morning-line odds of 6-1. Toss out his Grade 1 loss against an extraordinarily tough field at Churchill Downs last time when he drew post 11 and then blew it at the start to lose all chance. Before that last race, Point Dume was in career-best form with three wins in a row including stakes wins with triple-digit Beyer Speed Figures when winning the $200,000 General George Stakes at Laurel Park and the Grade 2 Carter Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets at Aqueduct where, notably, he beat 2025 sprint champion Book’em Danno. The main question for Point Dume is not based on ability, it’s based on the one-mile distance of this race around two turns, which is a stretchout for him. However, Point Dume has already had success in his career in a two-turn mile stakes, and he’s good enough to upset the other big names in this race based on his best efforts. #6 Bishops Bay has not been his best in two races so far this year – both losses – but he won the Grade 2 Cigar Mile Handicap last fall, won this same race by five lengths last year, and belongs on all exacta and trifecta tickets even if you are trying to beat him in your win bets. The horse in the race offering value odds who should be included in our bets in exactas and trifectas is #5 Otter Mischief, who is listed at 10-1 odds despite posting a 106 Beyer Speed Figure in a big win at Parx Racing last time out. He’ll step up in class, but he was so good in that last race that he shouldn’t be overlooked here, especially because he was not at all embarrassed the last time he stepped up against stakes company with a second in Laurel’s $100,000 City of Light Stakes last fall.

The Play: Bet on #3 Point Dume (6-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #5 Otter Mischief (10-1) and #6 Bishops Bay (9-5).