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.

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Six Beginner Betting Tools

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Del Mar’s biggest day is Saturday with the running of the $1 million, Grade 1 FanDuel Racing Pacific Classic headlining an 11-race program featuring five graded stakes. Plenty of star power is on hand for the Pacific Classic, as you would expect, but there’s also star power elsewhere on the card. Saturday’s races at Del Mar also include the Grade 3 Torrey Pines Stakes, which has attracted a field of exciting 3-year-old fillies. Let’s take a look at the Torrey Pines and the Pacific Classic, which lead a tremendous day of racing and wagering where the turf meets the surf. Best of luck this weekend.

Del Mar, Race 8, $150,000 Torrey Pines Stakes, post time 8 p.m. ET

An excellent field of 3-year-old fillies has been assembled for Saturday’s Grade 3 Torrey Pines going one mile on the main track. The standout fillies in the field have both drawn on the far outside but the posts should not lead to their downfall and they are still the ones to beat. This starts with #9 Faiza, the Bob Baffert trainee who tore through her southern California peers late last year and in the opening months of 2023 with five straight wins including four graded stakes in two-turn races ranging from one mile to 1 1/16 miles. Her loss came when shipped east for the 1 1/8-mile, Grade 2 George E. Mitchell Black Eyed Susan Stakes at Pimlico where she never quite looked herself and settled for third. Since then, she’s come home and gone back to the drawing board with a three-month layoff. Now she should be ready to pick up where she left off when last seen in SoCal. Faiza should press or stalk the pace and then turn on the jets in the stretch. The other principal contender in the Torrey Pines drawn on the far outside is #10 Ceiling Crusher, a speedy Cal-bred trained by Doug O’Neill who is ready to step out against open company at this level. She wasn’t just beating Cal.-bred stakes horses earlier this year, she was destroying them in wins at 6 ½ furlongs in the Evening Jewel Stakes and then in her lone stretchout attempt so far when she won Santa Anita Park’s Melair Stakes by 17 lengths in gate-to-wire fashion. She’ll use her speed to clear from the outside draw and looms a threat to lead them all the way again.

The Play: Bet to win on #9 Faiza (8-5) and play her in an exacta box with #10 Ceiling Crusher (3-1).

Del Mar, Race 10, $1,000,000 FanDuel Racing Pacific Classic, post time 9 p.m. ET

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Del Mar’s signature stakes race of the season is the Grade 1 Pacific Classic, a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series “Win and You’re In” race guaranteeing a spot in the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic. The race pits top 3-year-olds against older horses at the classic distance of 1 ¼ miles. Three-year-olds have had success in the history of this race, and this year’s trio of sophomores – #1 Geaux Rocket Ride, #9 Arabian Knight, and #11 Skinner – will all be amongst the favorites. That being said, there are excellent older horses in the field, and it is those that should prove to be the ones to beat despite potentially being overlooked. #5 Defunded exits a too-bad-to-be-true effort in Del Mar’s San Diego Handicap where he finished fourth and was never involved at the distance of 1 1/16 miles. Seldom has a race seemed to be just a prep for a horse as much as the San Diego was for Defunded, who should look a lot more like his old self in this race at 1 ¼ miles, which is the distance of his Grade 1 win earlier this season at Santa Anita Park in the Hollywood Gold Cup. The other key older horse in the field is #3 Stilleto Boy, who also owns a Grade 1 win this year at 1 ¼ miles. That came in the Santa Anita Handicap Presented by Yamaava’ Resort & Casino, where he defeated next-out winners Proxy and Defunded. He also ran his heart out in defeat in other tough spots this year when third by a head in the Grade 2 Oaklawn Handicap and when third in the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes Presented by Baccarat. Finally, of the trio of 3-year-olds mentioned earlier, I prefer #9 Arabian Knight, who got KO’d by Mage’s rabbit when third in the Grade 1 TVG.com Haskell Stakes last time but now goes second off the layoff for Bob Baffert and should benefit from that prior outing and be ready for improvement.

The Play:  Bet #5 Defunded (4-1) to win and play him in three-horse exacta and trifecta boxes along with #3 Stilleto Boy (8-1) and #9 Arabian Knight (3-1).