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, Aug. 1

This weekend’s headline races come from Colonial Downs in New Kent, Va,, which will play host to an extensive lineup of stakes races on Saturday, including some of the last surviving vestiges of the late great Arlington International Racecourse. Arlington’s most famous races live on at Colonial Downs, so for this weekend’s winners let’s take a closer look at the headline races on Arlington Million day. If we can pick the winners of the featured Arlington Million and the Beverly D. Stakes, we will be well on our way to a profitable weekend. Best of luck.

Colonial Downs, Race 10, $500,000 Beverly D. Stakes, 5:03 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Beverly D. Stakes has drawn a 12-horse field of fillies and mares set to run 1 3/16 miles on Colonial’s main turf course, and it very well could be possible to narrow the race down to just its three top contenders. The horse to beat will be #9 Gimme a Nother, who has finished in the exacta in five of her six North American races since arriving from her native South Africa. She seems to have figured it all out in her last two races, in particular, with a victory in last year’s Grade 2 John C. Mabee Stakes at Del Mar and a win last time out in her 2026 season debut in Monmouth Park’s Grade 3 Eatontown Stakes, in which she beat last year’s Eatontown winner Whiskey Decision and Grayosh, the next-out winner of the Monmouth’s WinStar Matchmaker Stakes. Gimme a Nother has been finishing strong at distances a notch or two shorter, and this 1 3/16 miles she seems right in her wheelhouse. John Velazquez picks up the mount. The Beverly D. morning-line favorite is #8 Stellify, who won four straight races in Kentucky last year leading up to a loss in the Maker’s Mark Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf, where a bad trip cost her any chance. She comes into this spot without a prep race off a nine-month layoff, which makes her difficult to support for the win, but she certainly could be good enough to fill-out a spot in the exactas or trifectas. The horse that could really bump up the value of your tickets in this race is #5 Crevalle d’Oro, who returns from a freshening after a very solid winter at Gulfstream Park, where she finished second in the Grade 2 Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational Stakes Presented by Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and then lost an exceptionally tough edition of the Grade 3 Honey Fox Stakes Presented by MyRacehorse behind the likes of multiple graded stakes winners Lush Lips and Classic Q, who has blossomed into a Grade 1 winner this season. Crevalle d’Oro is being disrespected at 12-1 odds on the morning line and is a must-use addition to your wagers.

The Play: Bet on #9 Gimme a Nother (9-2) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #5 Crevalle d’Oro (12-1) and #8 Stellify (3-1).

Colonial Downs, Race 10, $1 million Arlington Million Stakes, 5:52 p.m. ET

Burnham Square dominates Elkhorn Stakes (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Grade 1 Arlington Million has drawn a good field this year ready to go 1 ¼ miles on the turf. Eight horses were entered and you can make a legit case for most of them in a very good betting race. Last year’s first- and third-place Arlington Million finishers, #3 Fort Washington and #4 Integration, are both back in this year’s field, but this race appears much tougher so let’s look for some new blood to fill out our bets. There isn’t much pace entered in the race, so the opportunity to lead the way might go to #5 Burnham Square again, just as it did last time when he showed his versatility to press and set the pace en route to a win in Churchill’s $217,500 Chorleywood Stakes. Burnham Square has also earned impressive wins this year in the Grade 3 Louisville Stakes and Keeneland’s Grade 2 VisitLEX Elkhorn Stakes while developing into one of the country’s top turf horses. The other main contender is #6 Test Score, who should be able to assume a useful close-up stalking position in this field. He won this year’s Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational and exits a solid second-place finish in Saratoga’s Grade 1 Resorts World Casino Manhattan Stakes at the similar distance of 1 3/16 miles when beaten just a half a length behind turf division leader Deterministic. Finally, if pace really does make the race, you also have to give an upset chance to #7 Mercante, who should be on or close to the lead and is coming off a solid runner-up finish behind Lagynos, who has been unbeatable this year on a current five-race winning streak. Mercante was beaten three-quarters of a length by Lagynos last time in the Grade 2 Wise Dan Stakes, and a repeat of that effort with a pace advantage in this race makes him a serious threat.

The Play: Bet on #5 Burnham Square (5-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #6 Test Score (9-2), and #7 Mercante (12-1).