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

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The first weekend after the Breeders’ Cup ushers in the fall season in racing and Aqueduct is ready with a sharp 10-race Saturday card that includes three stakes races. For this weekend’s winners, let’s turn our attention to two of the stakes races on Aqueduct’s Saturday program going both long and short on the turf including the Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship and the Grade 2 Red Smith Stakes. A couple of winners in these two races should give us a good start for a profitable weekend of racing and wagering. Best of luck.

Aqueduct, Race 8, $150,000 Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship, post time 3:10 p.m. ET

The $150,000 Aqueduct Turf Sprint Championship will feature a full field of 10 plus also-eligibles ready to race six furlongs on the outer turf course. It’s a high-quality, evenly-matched field that makes for a good betting race. The Aqueduct horse for the course in the bunch is #3 Twenty Six Black, who has won all three career turf sprints on this turf course to date and is 4-for-4 lifetime at six furlongs. This horse has finished in the exacta in eight of 10 outings and is exiting a win, so therefore it’s surprising to see him offering bargain 8-1 odds on the morning line. He is going up in class against stakes company, but he appears ready to handle this tougher assignment. The horse he will have to beat will be #9 Senbei, who is exiting a win in the corresponding race at Belmont at the Big A last month when he won the Grade 3 Belmont Turf Sprint Stakes for the top turf sprint trainer on the grounds, Christophe Clement. He also likes Aqueduct with a 2-for-2 record on this turf course, and he’ll be a handful if able to replicate his most recent effort. The other main contenders here are #5 Outlaw Kid and #6 Alogon, and both merit consideration in trifectas. Outlaw Kid is a two-time stakes winner at Woodbine who also has liked the Aqueduct course in the past (two wins), and Alogon won the $100,000 Parx Dash Stakes two races ago and raced competitively when third behind Senbei in the Belmont Turf Sprint last time out.

The Play: Bet on #3 Twenty Six Black (8-1) to win and play him in an exacta with #9 Senbei (5-2). Then play a four-horse trifecta box with the two aforementioned horses plus #5 Outlaw Kid (5-1) and #6 Alogon (9-2).

Aqueduct, Race 9, $300,000 Red Smith Stakes, post time 3:40 p.m. ET

Master Piece (Susie Raisher/NYRA)

The Grade 2 Red Smith Stakes has drawn a field of nine set to compete at 1 3/8 miles, which is three turns on the Aqueduct inner turf course. Let’s stick with the horse-for-the-course angle we employed in the Turf Sprint Championship and apply it to the Red Smith with #8 Master Piece, who is the defending champion in this race from 2023 and also ran one of his other best career races on this turf course earlier this year when he won the Grade 2 Fort Marcy Stakes. Master Piece comes into this spot in good form based on his third-place finish by a length last time in the Grade 2 California Crown John Henry Turf Championship Presented by 1/ST BET at Santa Anita Park. Expect him to step it up a notch even further here on his favorite course and get the victory. The second betting favorite on the morning line, #2 Integration, also makes a lot of sense. Integration won the Grade 2 2023 Hill Prince Stakes on this course as a 3-year-old and his highlight of 2024 so far was a runner-up finish in the Grade 1 Arlington Million Stakes two races ago.

The Play: Bet #8 Master Piece (5-2) to win and box him in exactas with #2 Integration (2-1).