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 is the biggest day of the year in Ohio racing with the running of the Grade 3 Ohio Derby featuring a big $500,000 purse headlining a 13-race card at Thistledown. Meanwhile, Belmont at the Big A also has an excellent Saturday program planned this weekend and its featured race will be the very playable $150,000 Wild Applause Stakes on the grass. For this weekend’s winners, let’s take a look at both the Thistledown and Belmont at the Big A feature races this Saturday and go for some good winning tickets. Good luck and have a great weekend at the races.

Belmont at the Big A, Race 10, $150,000 Wild Applause Stakes, post time 5:13 p.m. ET

The $150,000 Wild Applause Stakes has drawn a field of nine 3-year-old fillies ready to run one mile on the turf. The field features three Chad Brown trainees all drawn on the outside and the race probably will come down to these runners. Scanning down the past performances in this race, one thing you’ll notice is that several of the serious contenders in the field have shown early speed in some of their best efforts, including #4 Macanga, #6 Awesome Czech, the versatile #2 Curlin’s Girl, and Brown’s own #8 Chantilly Road. This should set things up nicely for a late runner, and Brown has just the horse to do that with #7 Grayosh who should be stalking in a prime position. Grayosh beat Chantilly Road for her maiden win before Chantilly Road came back to win her next race. Grayosh, meanwhile, graduated to test stakes company last time and ran a competitive fourth despite losing some steam late in the race at 1 18 miles. The one-mile distance should be more to her liking in this more winnable stakes spot. Curlin’s Girl was moved to the barn of trainer Linda Rice last time, and Rice changed her running style by asking her for early speed. Curlin’s Girl responded by setting blazing fractions before tiring late at 1 1/8 miles. She also seems better suited for this race’s one-mile distance. Finally, the jury is still out on Brown’s #9 Oversubscribed, and it is way too early to give up on her despite her loss last time out when she was favored but got off to a bad start and then chased the loose lone speed horse, Macanga, who got away with murder up front. The pace should be more contentious in the Wild Applause, and Oversubscribed should be in a better position to capitalize if she gets a better start.

The Play: Bet to win on #7 Grayosh (9-2) and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Curlin’s Girl (10-1) and #9 Oversubscribed (3-1).

Thistledown, Race 13, $500,000 Ohio Derby, post time 6:30 p.m. ET

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The biggest race of the year in the Buckeye State happens Saturday with the 2024 running of the Grade 3 Ohio Derby. The 1 1/8-mile race drew a 10-horse field of 3-year-olds that includes some horses that are graduates of the recently concluded Triple Crown season. The big name in the race is #8 Catching Freedom, the Twinspires.com Louisiana Derby winner who finished a very respectable fourth in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve and third in the Preakness Stakes. He’s a one-dimensional closer that is somewhat pace dependent, but there seems to be just barely enough pace in this race to help set up his late run. Trainer Brad Cox won the 2023 Ohio Derby with Tawny Port. Catching Freedom will be the favorite in this year’s Ohio Derby, and this looks like a spot where you can just take the free bingo square with the chalk and try to make your big money in the race in the exotics. For the exacta, the intriguing potentially up-and-coming prospect in the race is #9 Batten Down for trainer Bill Mott. On the negative side, Batten Down needed four outings to break his maiden – but on the plus side, when he did break his maiden last time he did so in impressive fashion in a dominating wire-to-wire 8 ¾-length win going 1 ¼ miles at Churchill Downs. He finished geared down in the stretch and still earned a big Beyer Speed Figure that makes him difficult to ignore.

The Play:  Bet #8 Catching Freedom (9-5) to win and box him in the exacta with #9 Batten Down (8-1).