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.

Six Beginner Betting Tools

1. Start simple with an easy guide for how to bet on horse racing.
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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.
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Gulfstream Park hosts its Pegasus Preview Day this Saturday featuring five stakes races, including three graded stakes which several horses will use as preps leading to next month’s Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes Day scheduled for Jan. 25. For this weekend’s winners, let’s concentrate on two of the more bettable races on Gulfstream’s Saturday program, the $140,000 Janus Stakes, which is a prep for next month’s Gulfstream Park Turf Sprint, and the Grade 3 Suwannee River Stakes, which is a prep for next month’s $500,000 Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf Invitational Stakes. If we can nail the winners of these two races and perhaps cash the exotics as well, we’ll be well on our way to a profitable weekend of racing and wagering at Gulfstream Park. Best of luck.

Gulfstream Park, Race 8, $140,000 Janus Stakes, post time 3:46 p.m. ET

The Janus Stakes has drawn a full and competitive field of 12 set to dash five furlongs on the turf. For me, the No. 1 handicapping factor in Gulfstream short turf sprints is speed, and you always want to look for horses that race on or close to the pace when making your bets. Morning-line favorite #10 Arzak lacks early speed, making him a beatable favorite and opening this race up for an upset. Perhaps the speediest of the speed horses entered in this race is #5 Yes I Am Free, a contender with a winning history in short turf sprints at Gulfstream with nine career wins and 14 career exacta finishes here at this trip. He needed his last race coming off a five-month layoff and still finished third by a length. Expect him to go faster and further second off the layoff, making him the pick for a front-running win at frankly ridiculous morning-line odds of 8-1 in his first start for trainer Brad Cox. #7 That’s Right is another speedy turf sprinter in this field making the switch to the Brad Cox barn, and Cox is unlikely to send his two contenders up into a duel with each other just in case that’s what you’re worried about. That’s Right has not done a lot of winning lately but he has been racking-up in-the-money finishes in good efforts in the second half of 2024 including seconds in $100,000 stakes races at Monmouth Park and Parx Racing. The other challenger to include in your exotics is #11 Coppola, another speedy turf sprinter that is more comfortable in a pace-pressing role. That will put him in a perfect pace spot in this race, and he certainly fits in this five-furlong spot after running fourth in October’s Grade 2 Woodford Stakes Presented by FanDuel at Keeneland going 5 ½ furlongs. He likely might have won the Woodford if it had been contested at the Janus’s distance of five furlongs.

The Play: Bet on #5 Yes I Am Free (8-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #7 That’s Right (10-1), and #11 Coppola (6-1).

Gulfstream Park, Race 11, $165,000 Suwannee River Stakes, post time 5:22 p.m. ET

Ocean Club (Lauren King/Coglianese Photo)

The Grade 3 Suwannee River Stakes has drawn a wide-open 12-horse field of fillies and mares set to race one mile on the turf in a prep for the Pegasus Filly and Mare Turf Invitational. #1 Ocean Club was a stakes winner on this course back in May and comes into the Suwannee River off a win in New York’s Grade 3 Noble Damsel Stakes at this one-mile distance. She’s capable of another wire-to-wire win here, and it’s a plus that she doesn’t even need the lead in order to win. If you like Ocean Club, the obvious exacta mate along with her is #11 Breath Away from the barn of turf ace trainer Christophe Clement. She just missed by a head behind Ocean Club in the Noble Damsel and has raced again since then, finishing second by a neck in the 1 1/16-mile Forever Together Stakes in a race she led at the mile marker. Breath Away has run well in the past on the Gulfstream turf with a stakes win and a stakes place on the grass in 2023. Another interesting contender in the Suwannee River is #8 Saffron Moon, who will attract plenty of attention on the tote board for trainer Chad Brown with Tyler Gaffalione aboard. Saffron Moon badly needed a race last time in her return from an 11-month layoff and was able to run a solid closing effort for second at Keeneland in an outing that sets her up for a more fully cranked-up try Saturday in her second race off the layoff.

The Play: Bet #1 Ocean Club (4-1) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #8 Saffron Moon (6-1) and #11 Breath Away (5-1).