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 SatuTalking 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

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. 7

The brief Kentucky Downs season reaches its peak on Saturday, Sept. 7 when the track hosts six stakes races all worth $2 million apiece. The 12-race program will be headlined by the Grade 2 FanDuel TV Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes, which is part of the Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series with its winner earning a “win and you’re in” spot into the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf. Aside from the featured race, there is quality racing and wagering elsewhere up and down the Saturday Kentucky Downs card. One of the undercard highlights of day will be the Grade 3 Mint Millions Stakes at one mile. For this weekend’s winners, let’s focus on the Kentucky Turf Cup and the Mint Millions Stakes. If we can cash some bets in these features, we will be well on our way to an enjoyable Saturday at Kentucky Downs. Best of luck.

Kentucky Downs, Race 8, $2 million Mint Millions Stakes, post time 4:41 p.m. ET

Talk of the Nation winning at Kentucky Downs. (Eclipse Sportswire)

Saturday’s one-mile, Grade 3 Mint Millions for 3-year-olds and older at Kentucky Downs has drawn a wide-open 11-horse field with several contenders. Last year’s winner in the race, #10 Ancient Rome, is listed as the 5-2 morning-line favorite, but at those odds he will offer no value in this spot. His effort last time in the Arlington Million, where he basically sat out the early stages in the race and did only mild running in the stretch to finish a nonthreatening third at 1 ¼ miles, does not appear to have him set up for a Mint Millions repeat. Instead of Ancient Rome, the best contender coming out of the Arlington Million into this field is #8 Talk of the Nation, who actually did more running that day despite his fourth-place finish but faded late after chasing a runaway leader at the 1 ¼-mile distance that was too far for him. In the Mint Millions, Talk of the Nation returns to his wheelhouse one-mile distance for trainer Todd Pletcher and stacks up very nicely against this field based on his second two races ago in Saratoga’s Grade 3 Kelso Stakes. In the Kelso, he finished within a half a length of Carl Spackler, the next-out winner of the Grade 1 FanDuel Fourstardave Handicap who is one national leaders in the turf mile division. The other horse to beat in the field is #7 Funtastic Again, who stepped up into Grade 1 company and finished second last time in the Shoemaker Mile Stakes, in which he finished just a half a length behind Johannes, who has already come back to win again in the Grade 2 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar. For the exotics, the other horse you might hesitate to leave off of your tickets would be #2 Mountain Bear, who invades for trainer Aidan O’Brien with Frankie Dettori board after finishing second in a Group 3 one-mile stakes race in Ireland in his most recent start.

The Play: Bet on #8 Talk of the Nation (4-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Mountain Bear (10-1) and #7 Funtastic Again (5-1).

Kentucky Downs, Race 10, $2 million Kentucky Turf Cup Stakes, post time 5:55 p.m. ET

Tawny Port offers appeal at 8-1 odds. (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Grade 2 Kentucky Turf Cup has drawn an 11-horse field ready to go 1 ½ miles on the Kentucky Downs turf course for a $2 million purse and an automatic berth into the Breeders’ Cup Turf. The stakes are high but the favorites in this race are not beyond reproach in terms of their preference, or lack thereof, for this 1 ½-mile distance. The horse in the field at the best odds with the best chance to excel at 1 ½ miles here is #7 Tawny Port, who has spent much of this year knocking on the door in turf distance spots with four second- or third-place finishes so far at the Grade 2 or Grade 3 level on his resume in 2024. He came up short when taking the worst of a three-way win photo last time in the Grade 2 United Nations Stakes at 1 3/8 miles and was moving the best of the top-finishing trio at the finish. Tawny Port won at 1 5/8 miles at Saratoga in the John’s Call Stakes last year, so this additional distance seems to favor him in this rematch of the top three horses exiting the United Nations. Flavien Prat, coming off an all-time Saratoga jockey record 18 stakes wins at the meet has the mount for turf ace trainer Christophe Clement. One of the talented runners in this field that has never really been a 1 ½-mile horse is #2 Integration, who is an exotics contender in this race but does not seem to be a good win bet at this underlay 8-5 odds on the morning line. He’s a multiple winner on the turf in Grade 2-3 spots and exits a runner-up finish last time in the Grade 1 Arlington Million. There are three horses in the field that own career wins at 1 ½ miles, and one of them is the defending winner of this race, #4 Get Smokin, who stole the race last year on an uncontested lead. While that pace scenario is unlikely to repeat again this year, Get Smokin exits a win in the aforementioned United Nations and is a veteran stakes performer who is already a proven winner on this unique Kentucky Downs course.

The Play:  Bet #7 Tawny Port (8-1) to win and box him in the exactas and trifectas with #2 Integration (8-5), and #4 Get Smokin (12-1).