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.

Horseplayers look forward to the Keeneland meets all year, and when they arrive they seem like they just fly by. For this installment of weekend winners, let’s take a closer look at Keeneland’s pair of graded stakes races on what will be the penultimate Saturday card of the fall meet – the Grade 3 Perryville Stakes and the Grade 2 Lexus Raven Run Stakes. If we can pick the winners of these two high-profile races, we will be well on our way to a big day at Keeneland. Good luck and enjoy the races!

Keeneland, Race 6, $350,000 Perryville Stakes, post time 3:40 p.m. ET

The Grade 3 Perryville is a seven-furlong stakes race for 3-year-olds that has drawn a field of six. The horse to beat is morning-line favorite #5 Captain Cook, who joined the barn of trainer Todd Pletcher last time out and ran a career-best effort in defeat when nipped by a nose in Saratoga’s Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes at this seven-furlong distance. A repeat of that kind of effort could result in a win at Keeneland. In order to win, however, Captain Cook will need to beat a two-pronged Bob Baffert-trained invading force consisting of #3 Barnes and #1 Gaming, who both loom as contenders. Barnes finished right behind Captain Cook in the Jerkens, but then he lost some his luster last time by running a non-competitive fourth in the Grade 2 Gallant Bob Stakes at Parx Racing. He’s due for a positive turnaround, but it is Baffert’s other entrant, Gaming, that will be the better bet at better odds in Saturday’s race. Gaming was a Grade 1 winner at this distance as a 2-year-old in the 2024 Del Mar Futurity and was second in the 2024 FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Presented by TAA. Toss out the last-place fiasco in his most recent race, the Shared Belief Stakes, when he was not strongly persevered with once it became apparent he would finish last in that three-horse field behind Citizen Bull at Del Mar. Gaming, in fact, had shown good signs of life earlier this year when third vs. a tough field in the Grade 2 Pat Day Mile Stakes Presented by SAP. He then won the $100,000 Affirmed Stakes where he beat Nevada Beach, who has since come back to win the Grade 1 Goodwood Stakes. The feeling here is that Gaming is underrated and good enough to score the upset with John Velazquez aboard.

The Play: Bet on #1 Gaming (8-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #3 Barnes (5-2) and #5 Captain Cook (6-5). Those exactas and trifectas will be worth something if Gaming comes out on top.

Keeneland, Race 8, $400,000 Lexus Raven Run Stakes, post time 5:16 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Lexus Raven Run has drawn an excellent full field of 3-year-old fillies ready to run seven furlongs on the main track. The race could come down to a classic West vs. East matchup between two potentially up-and-coming female stars, #8 Usha and #9 Ragtime, so let’s hope these young talents can put on a show on Saturday. Ragtime is 3-for-4 so far in her career, all in seven-furlong races for trainer Bill Mott including an impressive win last time in Churchill Downs’ Grade 3 Dogwood Stakes Presented by Resolute Racing and a near-miss two races ago in Saratoga’s Grade 1 Test Stakes Presented by Ticketmaster in a neck loss that took little of the luster away from her 2025 campaign. She’ll be stalking the pace and should be flying late behind what should be a fast pace that will benefit her chances. Usha, meanwhile, ships in from the west coast for Baffert and steps up against stakes company for the first time after two dominating 6 ½-furlong Del Mar wins by a combined 16 ¾ lengths with speed figures that put her in Ragtime’s neighborhood. She’ll be on or close to the pace, but she can rate and doesn’t need the lead to win. Finally, if there is going to be an upset, it probably will come from #11 Quietside, who seemed to be on her way to good things this spring after back-to-back graded stakes wins at Oaklawn Park but who has been sidelined nearly six months since her last race. She might need this outing but should be dangerous wherever she goes next, perhaps with a stretchout.

The Play: Bet on #9 Ragtime (3-1) to win and play her in an exacta box with #8 Usha (9-2).