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 Churchill Downs meet is winding down but the season should go out with a bang this Saturday with some fireworks under the Twin Spires. Churchill will host a 12-race program with seven stakes races headlined by one of the best races of the year for older horses, the $2 million Stephen Foster Stakes. For this weekend’s winners, let’s focus on the Stephen Foster for the race of the week and also tackle the Tepin Stakes in the finale on the card. If we can finish strong, we should cap off a winning day at Churchill Downs this Saturday. Best of luck and enjoy the races.

Saturday, June 27

Churchill Downs, Race 11, $2 million Stephen Foster Stakes, 6:14 p.m. ET

The Grade 1 Stephen Foster drew a field of seven older horses set to go 1 1/8 miles on the main track and the lineup includes some of the best horses in training. The race, which was reduced to five runners after a pair of scratches, features a rematch between 2025 Horse of the Year #3 Sovereignty and #2 White Abarrio, who beat Sovereignty soundly last time out in April’s Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap. Throw in the winner of this year’s $12 million Dubai World Cup Sponsored by Emirates Airline #5 Magnitude, 2025 Pennsylvania Derby winner #4 Baeza, and one other accomplished runner, and you’ve got yourself one heckuva race. Most of the attention seems to be going to go toward Sovereignty and White Abarrio, so the best alternative for bettors looks like Magnitude, who comes into this race in career-best form with three straight wins, including his highlight Dubai World Cup victory where he handed 2025 Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Forever Young a rare defeat. Magnitude lost to Sovereignty in last year’s DraftKings Travers Stakes, but he’s come a long way since then while Sovereignty has had just one race in the interim. If Magnitude is capable of beating Forever Young, as he did last time out, he should also be capable of beating this field, so let’s go with the minor upset. Amongst Sovereignty and White Abarrio, in spite of the result of the Oaklawn Handicap last time, I expect Sovereignty to rebound and turn the tables in what will be his second start of the year coming back from a long layoff. A lack of pace in the Oaklawn Handicap forced Sovereignty to go to the front that day, but he’s much better as a pace presser or stalker than he is as a front-runner, and he should get a more suitable, up-close stalking trip from a little bit off the pace in this race. Beyond Magnitude and Sovereignty, the race for third should be a scramble between White Abarrio and Baeza, who, like Sovereignty is also making the second start of his 4-year-old season after a layoff. We’ll use both of them to round out the trifectas.

The Play: Bet on #5 Magnitude (7-2) to win and play him in an exacta box with #3 Sovereignty (6-5). For trifectas, bet Magnitude and Sovereignty in the top two spots on top of both #2 White Abarrio and #4 Baeza in the third slot. Start the late daily double using both Magnitude and Sovereignty in Race 11 along with the top pick(s) listed below for Race 12.

Churchill Downs, Race 12, $275,000 Tepin Stakes, 6:44 p.m. ET

Ground Support wins Miss Grillo Stakes (Coglianese Photos/Walter Wlodarczyk)

Saturday’s nightcap at Churchill Downs will be the Tepin Stakes going one mile on the turf for 3-year-old fillies. The 11-horse field is topped by #8 Ground Support, who will be making her season debut after finishing third in last fall’s John Deere Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf. She had won her first two career races as a 2-year-old, including the Grade 2 Miss Grillo Stakes, before being dramatically disrespected at 24.30-1 odds from post #11 in a 12-horse field in the Breeders’ Cup. She might not be ready for her top effort yet in her first start back off the layoff, but if she’s the world-class turf filly she showed herself to be last fall, it’s not going to matter against Saturday’s solid, but unspectacular competition in the Tepin Stakes. #7 How About Now is a winner of two straight turf races, taking a Keeneland maiden race and winning a stakes win at Horseshoe Indianapolis. She dealt today’s opponent #5 Faye’s Gold her only defeat in that horse’s last three outings in the Indiana stakes win and also beat previously undefeated Keeneland allowance winner #3 East Jabip. For some reason How About Now is listed at 8-1 odds on the morning line and Faye’s Gold is 15-1, so let’s use that pair for value in exacta and trifecta boxes along with the top pick.

The Play: Bet on #8 Ground Support (3-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #5 Faye’s Gold (15-1) and #7 How About Now (8-1).