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 September meet is off and running and the meet is wasting no time kicking in to high gear with a Saturday card this week that includes five stakes races. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a look at a pair of the best betting races on the card with picks for the Open Mind Stakes and the Pocahantas Stakes. With any luck, a good Saturday this week will be the start of a winning September short season at Churchill Downs. Enjoy the races.

Saturday, Sept. 12

Churchill Downs, Race 6, $300,000 Open Mind Stakes, post time 3:21 p.m. ET

The Open Mind Stakes has drawn a field of seven fillies and mares set to go six furlongs on the main track, and trainer Bob Baffert has both of the horses to beat in the race with #1 Usha and #2 Cash Call. The question is which one of them to pick? The “other Baffert,” Cash Call, has been racing in Kentucky since June with a pair of stakes seconds to go along with a six-furlong win in her lone start to date at Churchill Downs. She tired last time when attempting to go a mile, but her races at six furlongs are much better. If she can match her recent efforts at this distance in this spot, she will be a tough customer, and she’s only the 7-2 fourth choice in the morning-line odds. Usha is the morning line favorite at 5-2 because she has been racing mainly in graded stakes races since December and mostly has held her own including a Grade 1 win in Santa Anita Park’s La Brea Stakes and a win in the six-furlong, Grade 3 Winning Colors Stakes in May. She comes into this race after throwing in two clunkers in a row in her last two races, but jockey Flavien Prat is back aboard to take another crack at it, and she still fits in this field based on her better efforts. The way to make money in the Open Mind may be to bet against a pair of the other favorites including #3 Look Forward at 3-1, who is returning from a year layoff, and #7 Modo at 3-1, who is good versus Texas-breds but not as good against open company. Instead of them, let’s add a longshot to our exactas and trifectas with #5 Benedetta, who has not won lately but has run second in stakes all over the map the last several months including races at Laurel Park, Oaklawn Park, and Mahoning Valley. She also has run well at six furlongs at Churchill Downs in the past when she was the runner-up in the 2025 Winning Colors Stakes. There are a lot of speedsters in this field who want to race on or close to the pace, and Benedetta should be in a good spot rating just off the leaders with a very good chance to hit the board for trainer Steve Asmussen.

The Play: Bet on #2 Cash Call (7-2) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes along with #1 Usha (5-2) and #5 Benedetta (8-1).

Churchill Downs, Race 8, $300,000 Pocahontas Stakes, post time 4:26 p.m. ET

Manuka Honey (Coady Media)

The Grade 3 Pocahantas Stakes has drawn a field of nine 2-year-old fillies ready to run one mile on the main track in the first official points race on the road to the 2027 Kentucky Oaks. There is a big favorite who we must have on all of our tickets, and that is #2 Manuka Honey, who has started her career 2-for-2 by a combined winning margin of 14 ¼ lengths including her seven-length win last time going seven furlongs in the $249,000 Ellis Park Debutante. We’ll include the chalk in our bets but also take a shot to beat her to win with #1 Pierette, who won the $222,000 Debutante Stakes at Churchill Downs two races ago and then disappointed last time when sixth in the Grade 3 Adirondack Stakes at Saratoga. She needs a rebound but it’s worth giving Pierette another chance because maybe she’ll get a better trip than last time when she was buried inside and shuffled back on the rail on the backstretch to be way too far out of it when she started running in the stretch at 6 ½ furlongs. She didn’t end up that far out of second place in that race ruled by a runaway winner, and she’s a candidate to improve at this one-mile distance. Finally, there is one horse in the Pocahontas field that is already a winner at a mile and that is #3 Stripe Show, who should be able to outlast some of the speedy horses in this field.

The Play: Bet on #1 Pierette (9-2) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Manuka Honey (9-5), and #3 Stripe Show (12-1).