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, Sept. 5

The Saratoga summer season has flown by, and Labor Day weekend is already here. As the meet wraps up, there is still some very good racing and wagering remaining at the Spa on closing weekend. For Saturday’s 12-race card, let’s tackle Saratoga’s late Daily Double beginning with the Spinaway Stakes in Race No. 11. If we finish the day strong, we can go home with full pockets this Saturday. Best of luck!

Saratoga Race Course, Race 11, $300,000 Spinaway Stakes, 5:45 p.m. ET

Harper’s Corner wins Schuylerville Stakes (Eclipse Sportswire)

Saturday’s Spa feature is the premier race of the meet for 2-year-old fillies, the Grade 1 Spinaway Stakes going seven furlongs on the main track. The talented field is topped by #6 Harper’s Corner, who is already a stakes winner from earlier this meet when she won the $200,000 Schuylerville Stakes in impressive fashion by 5 ¼ lengths to raise her record to 2-for-2. She has speed to lead and will face pace pressure but has already successfully fended off front-end challengers and still been able to draw off in the stretch to score by big winning margins. The other prior stakes winner in this field is very likely to be overlooked on the tote board, and that is #4 Stress Relief, who won Saratoga’s Grade 2 Adirondack Stakes last time to also improve her record to 2-for-2. If there is a scramble for the lead amongst several rivals in this race and some tired legs in the stretch at seven furlongs, Stress Relief appears to be the most likely beneficiary based on the strong late kick she demonstrated in her races so far. Competition runs deep in this field and you can make a legitimate chase for most of the eight fillies in the race, but to round out exactas and trifectas let’s take a stand with #8 Life Changing, a seven-figure yearling purchase for Repole Stable trained by Todd Pletcher and ridden by Flavien Prat, who gets off #7 Angel of Kirk to pick up the mount. Life Changing was favored in her career debut last time out and delivered with an effortless seven-length win where she looked like she could be the real deal.

The Play: Bet on #6 Harper’s Corner (5-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #4 Stress Relief (8-1) and #8 Life Changing (5-2). Also start late Daily Doubles using these three top selections along with the win selection in Race No. 12.

Saratoga Race Course, Race 12, $78,000 Starter-Optional Claiming, 6:20 p.m. ET

Saturday’s Spa nightcap is a 1 1/16-mile turf race for fillies and mares with an 11-horse field. The race contains a few standouts that should make this possible to narrow down to a shortlist of contenders for the exactas and trifectas. The horse to beat is #7 Griselda for trainer Chad Brown and jockey Manny Franco, and she is the single in the back-end of our late Daily Doubles along with the top trio in the Spinaway. Griselda was not embarrassed in graded stakes races last year as a 3-year-old and recently came back from a long layoff with a turf sprint prep race. Now, she drops in class, stretches back out to a turf route for the top turf barn and will be ready to roll in the second start of her comeback from an eight-month layoff. The morning-line favorite is #3 Ori and she certainly belongs in the exactas and trifectas at this class level. She was racing against tougher when beaten earlier in this meet in her return from a 3 ½-month layoff and fits well in this spot with Prat aboard for trainer Michelle Nevin, who has had a strong Spa meet this season with six wins from her first 24 starters (25%) with eight of 24 in the exacta. The third contender, at least for the trifectas, is #4 Saratoga Snow, who has been racing at this level recently and posted a pair of in-the-money finishes in May and June against tougher fields. Toss out the off-the-turf fiasco last time out and give her another shot.

The Play: Bet on #7 Griselda (4-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #3 Ori (9-5) and #4 Saratoga Snow (5-1).