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.

The day we have all been waiting for is finally here – Breeders’ Cup Saturday at Del Mar. The program will include nine championship races featuring many of the stars of the sport sure to give us some of the best racing and wagering of the entire year. The big event of the day, the $7 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic will be run as race 8 on the 12-race card, and there will still be four championship races still to go once the Classic has been decided (for the record, my Classic bet will be an inside-outside exacta box of #1 Forever Young and #14 Next).

After the Classic, the end of the Breeders’ Cup program will be far from anti-climactic. So many of the key multi-race bets of the day will come down to the last two races on the card, the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile presented by PDJF and the Big Ass Fans Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (where else would the Big Ass Fans Dirt Mile be than on the rear-end of the card?). For this weekend’s winners, let’s save the best for last and place our bets on both of the mile races on the Breeders’ Cup program. If we finish strong, we will be guaranteed to go home with plenty of money in our pockets. Best of luck and enjoy racing’s biggest day.

Del Mar, Race 11, $2,000,000 FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile presented by PDJF, post time 7:45 p.m. ET

The Breeders’ Cup Mile has drawn a field of 12 entries that includes high-quality United States-based contenders that will give the many foreign invaders in the field from France, England, Ireland, and Japan a run for their money. Let’s take the top two American runners and put them with the top two foreign contenders and center some bets based on those horses. #12 Carl Spackler has already proven he’s the real deal and he won’t make things easy for the invaders despite his outside post. Carl Spackler has speed and will be able to clear much of the field before the first turn to avoid game-changing ground loss. Once he’s near the lead, Carl Spackler will have a chance to press the pace for trainer Chad Brown and show-off his big motor and do what he does best – blast past the other pace horses and then outrun the closers to get the win. #9 Johannes has a similar running style, is based in southern California, and is a legit contender in his own right based on his 4-for-4 record this year including a win in the Grade 2 Eddie Read Stakes at Del Mar which was perhaps his best career race to date. The best of the invaders, meanwhile, should be #6 Notable Speech, who owns two Group 1 mile wins this year and hails from the barn of trainer Charlie Appleby, who has won this race the last three years in row. Also, 3-year-old filly #7 Porta Fortuna is impossible to ignore based on her three straight Group 1 mile wins in England and Ireland coming into this race.

The Play: Bet on #12 Carl Spackler (6-1) to win and box him in exactas with #6 Notable Speech (7-2) and #9 Johannes (9-2). Add #7 Porta Fortuna (4-1) to complete four-horse trifecta boxes.

Del Mar, Race 12, $1,000,000 Big Ass Fans Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, post time 8:25 p.m. ET

Domestic Product trains at Del Mar. (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Dirt Mile is the nightcap of the 2024 Breeders’ Cup program and will feature a full 14-horse field in a race that will decide the late double, pick 3, pick 4, pick 5, and pick 6. If it comes down to the last race for you in any of those bets, the horse you want on your ticket is #9 Domestic Product, who stacks up as one of the best bets of the entire 2024 Breeders’ Cup. Domestic Product hit his best stride in his most recent races and comes into the race with the best current form following his win in the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens Memorial Stakes at Saratoga where he got up to win at seven furlongs, which is shorter than his optimal distance. Domestic Product’s two recent wins have been around one turn, and this race will be a two-turn mile, but this layout will pose no problem for Domestic Product who broke his maiden in a 1 1/8 race, won the Grade 2 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby around two turns, and finished ahead of Fierceness around two turns when second in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes. He has top-notch connections with trainer Chad Brown and jockey Flavien Prat calling the shots, and his biggest challenger, #14 Skippylongstocking, is marooned out in the parking lot in post 14. As the third-place finisher in this race last year, and a multiple graded stakes winner coming out of a second-place finish in the Grade 2 Woodward Stakes, Skippylongstocking still belongs in exactas and trifectas against this caliber of competition, but his chances of winning may take a negative hit due to the far outside draw. There also are plenty of other challengers in this field, especially if you start talking about horses that are contenders to finish in the money. There’s a lot of front-end speed in the field, but the speed of the speed should be #1 Saudi Crown who should send from the rail and may never look back if he can repeat some of his best career efforts. Finally, Bob Baffert enters #10 Muth, who exits a too-bad-to-be-true loss in the Grade 1 California Crown Stakes Presented by SirDavis American Whisky but certainly is capable of a rebound at Del Mar, where he won the Shared Belief Stakes off a layoff two races ago.

The Play: Bet #9 Domestic Product (7-2) to win and key him in exacta boxes with #1 Saudi Crown (5-1), #10 Muth, and #14 Skippylongstocking (4-1). Key Domestic Product in trifectas above the same three horses.