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.

Some of this weekend’s best racing and wagering will come from Monmouth Park, which hosts its Haskell Preview Day consisting of four stakes races that will serve as the local prep races for the big races on next month’s NYRA Bets Haskell Invitational Stakes Day card. For this weekend’s winners, let’s focus on the $150,000 NYRA Bets Pegasus Stakes, which might send its top finisher(s) onward to the Haskell. Later, the day’s feature race will be the Grade 3, $150,000 Salvator Mile Stakes for older horses. Both races have drawn competitive fields. If we can cash some bets in one or both of these headline events, we will be well on our way to a successful Saturday. Enjoy racing from Monmouth Park this Saturday, and best of luck.

Monmouth Park, Race 10, $150,000 NYRA Bets Pegasus Stakes, post time 5:24 p.m. ET

The Pegasus Stakes has attracted a field of eight 3-year-olds ready to race 1 1/16 miles on the main track for a purse of $150,000. Some of the runners in the race boast name recognition based on big wins earlier this year such as #5 Hades, who won the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes in February, #6 Uncle Heavy, who won the Grade 3 Withers Stakes over the winter, and #7 Domestic Product, who won the Grade 3 Lambholm South Tampa Bay Derby in March. That trio are all legitimate contenders in this field, but the preference goes to #8 Sea Streak, a horse whose best race was not months ago, but rather was last time out when he crushed the field in the $117,000 Long Beach Stakes by 7 ¼ lengths right here at Monmouth Park at a similar distance with a Beyer Speed Figure far exceeding what any of these rivals have done in their most recent starts. He owns tactical speed and shouldn’t need to be extended too much early in this race that may not have much pace. Sea Streak looks like the right horse in the right place at the right time in the Pegasus. For the exotics, #1 Tuscan Sky is an interesting rebound candidate in this spot for trainer Todd Pletcher if you focus on his good efforts in his first two career outings instead of his total no-show last time in the Grade 2 Wood Memorial Stakes Presented by Resorts World Casino. Finally, out of the trio of graded stakes winners Hades, Uncle Heavy, and Domestic Product, the best looks like Domestic Product, who certainly has a shot to improve for trainer Chad Brown after a bad start in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve left him way too far back and far out of it to make any dent that day. In this race, he’ll be in a much better stalking spot given a fair break from the gate.

The Play: Bet to win on #8 Sea Streak (7-2) and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 Tuscan Sky (5-2) and #7 Domestic Product (3-1).

Monmouth Park, Race 12, $150,000 Salvator Mile Stakes, post time 6:22 p.m. ET

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The Grade 3 Salvator Mile drew a competitive field of eight older horses, and you can make a legitimate case for just about any and all of them to win. The big name in the field and the probable favorite will be #2 Bright Future (1-1), who won last fall’s Grade 1 Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes, but this race does not look like an ideal spot for him as he’ll be cutting back in distance from 1 ¼ miles to a mile in his return from a seven-month layoff, and he seems like a chalk you get some value from by betting against. A better bet in this spot should be #3 Artorious for Chad Brown, who seems just as fast or faster than Bright Future at the one-mile distance of today’s race. Artorius was fourth in the 2023 Salvator Mile when returning from a long layoff, but unlike last year, he’s entering this spot in mid-season form with a mile victory at Belmont at the Big A and a close third behind the likes of Blazing Sevens two races ago at the Aqueduct meet to show for his two most recent outings. Flavien Prat flies in for the mount. For the exactas, the preference goes to #8 Coastal Mission, a horse that won eight times in 10 starts during 2023 including four two-turn seven-furlong races at Charles Town. He is not known for being a miler to this point in his career, but he won a $100,000 stakes at Laurel Park by finishing fastest at seven furlongs two races ago, and he shouldn’t have trouble with this extra furlong based on a repeat of that winning effort.

The Play:  Bet #3 Artorious (4-1) to win and box him in the exacta with #8 Coastal Mission (10-1).