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.
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, Feb. 1

Gulfstream Park, Race 11, $265,000 Holy Bull Stakes, 5:13 p.m. ET

Battle-tested Ferocious (Eclipse Sportswire)

A field of seven 3-year-olds is set to race 1 1/16 miles in the Grade 3 Holy Bull Stakes in a race that could launch the winner or top finishers forward on the road to the 2025 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. The field contains some potential up-and-coming maiden winners making the next logical step against stakes company but the horse to beat in the race is #2 Ferocious, a colt already tested against most of the best members of his age in races as a 2-year-old. Ferocious won big in the mud in his career debut at Saratoga and faced nothing but Grade 1 competition since then with solid second-place finishes to his credit in the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga and then in Keeneland’s Claiborne Breeders’ Futurity before finishing fifth in the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Presented by TAA. He adds blinkers for his 3-year-old debut, and this high-level competitor can handle the distance and has yet to really run a bad race. Of the group of maiden winners with the best chance to step-up in this spot, #3 Tappan Street is the most interesting based on his win at first asking last time over a 12-horse field here at Gulfstream for trainer Brad Cox, who wins at a 38% clip with horses like this that are stretching out from a sprint to a route. There is a pair of stakes winners entered in the race including #4 Guns Loaded, who won Gulfstream’s Mucho Macho Man Stakes last time, and #5 He’s Not Joking, who won a Woodbine stakes on an all-weather surface last year. Of that pair, the speedy Guns Loaded deserves a spot in exactas and trifectas with Irad Ortiz Jr. picking up the mount here on a horse who is coming off back-to-back wire-to-wire wins. The question today for Guns Loaded will be if he can handle the 1 1/16-mile distance around two turns. We will soon find out.

The Play: Bet on #2 Ferocious (9-5) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #3 Tappan Street (3-1) and #4 Guns Loaded (5-2).

Gulfstream Park, Race 12, $165,000 Fasig-Tipton Forward Gal Stakes, 5:45 p.m. ET

Three-year-old fillies take their turn in Saturday’s finale at Gulfstream with the running of the Grade 3 Forward Gal Stakes, which has drawn a field of 11 set to go seven furlongs. There is no shortage of contenders, but the horse to beat is #7 Eclatant, a filly who began her career last year with two sharp wins who was talented enough to notch an 82 Beyer Speed Figure as a 2-year-old in June. Eclatant settled for third in her most recent start in Churchill Downs’ Grade 2 Golden Rod Stakes when stretched out to 1 1/16 miles, but she seems much more well-placed in this seven-furlong assignment for Brad Cox. The other spots in the exacta and trifecta should belong to the horses in the race with the top career credentials to date: #2 The Queens M G and #11 Stunner. The Queens M G was a Grade 3 winner of Saratoga’s Adirondack Stakes at 6 ½ furlongs as a 2-year-old by nine lengths who will race for Gulfstream’s top trainer Saffie Joseph Jr. and jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. Stunner is a Cox Stablemate of Eclatant who was a maiden winner at 6 ½ furlongs at Aqueduct last fall who then won the $150,000 Tempted Stakes at Aqueduct at a one-turn mile. Seven furlongs should be ideal for her.

The Play: Bet #7 Eclatant (9-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 The Queens M G (5-1) and #11 Stunner (4-1).