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 Talking 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, March 8

The marquee day of racing and wagering at Tampa Bay Downs is Saturday as the track hosts Tampa Bay Derby day, a 12-race card that will include five stakes races topped by the headline event for 3-year-olds on the road to the 2025 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. The co-featured race will be the Grade 2 $200,000 Hillsborough Stakes on the turf, and another of the top betting races of the afternoon will also be a turf race with the running of the $100,000 Columbia Stakes. For this weekend’s winners, let’s concentrate on the turf stakes on Saturday’s undercard at Tampa, the Hillsborough Stakes and the Columbia Stakes. Hit these two bets and you’ll have plenty of money at your disposal to send in on your choice in the Tampa Bay Derby.

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 7, $100,000 Columbia Stakes, 3:28 p.m. ET

The Columbia Stakes for 3-year-olds at a mile on the grass has drawn a field that far exceeds the quality you would expect to find a non-graded $100,000 stakes race at Tampa Bay Downs. The field of nine includes several stakes-placed horses in addition to some promising maiden winners looking to step up. The field is led by #6 Zulu Kingdom, who won a pair of New York graded stakes races as a 2-year-old and was last seen finishing seventh as one of the favorites in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf. He makes his 2025 debut here and there is little question about his ability in terms of today’s race, except that this race will be his return from a four-month layoff and he may or may not be ready to fire his best shot right off the bat. The fact he’s trained by Chad Brown, who seemingly wins similar races off long layoffs all the time, certainly doesn’t hurt. If there’s a horse in this field that can knock-off Zulu Kingdom it probably will be #9 Dream On, who was the pacesetter in last fall’s Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf and went on to finish ahead of Zulu Kingdom in that race when fifth. Unlike Zulu Kingdom, however, Dream On does come into this race with his 3-year-old debut outing already in his back pocket when he won a Gulfstream allowance-optional claiming race in January. Trainer Mark Casse gets the services of jockey Irad Ortiz Jr. today aboard Dream On, which is never a bad thing. The third-place horse from that Gulfstream race, Scarecrow, has already come back to win a turf allowance race in his next start. Both Zulu Kingdom and Dream On are fairly obvious choices in this race, so how about a sneaky contender to try and add value in your exactas and trifectas? That horse is Brown’s “other” entry, #1 Early Adopter, also making his 3-year-old debut. He could get a ground-saving trip from the rail and might race closer to the pace than in his previous races with blinkers on.

The Play: Bet on #9 Dream On (4-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 Early Adopter (6-1) and #6 Zulu Kingdom (2-1).

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 9, $200,000 Hillsborough Stakes, 4:31 p.m. ET

Ace turf trainer Graham Motion. (Eclipse Sportswire)

The Grade 2 Hillsborough Stakes drew a field of 10 fillies and mares set to race 1 1/8 miles on the turf. This race is exciting, in part, because it will be the American debut of #7 Gimme a Nother, a dominant undefeated winner of seven races in her native South Africa with two Group 1 wins, including a 4 ¼-length win in her only try so far at this 1 1/8-mile distance. As a handicapper, you have to take a stand with or against an x-factor horse like this, and I for one can’t wait to see what she can do. She runs for turf ace trainer Graham Motion and gets Irad Ortiz Jr. aboard. If Gimme a Nother is going to win, she’s going to have to run the gauntlet of three Chad Brown stakes winners entered in this field: #4 Venencia, #6 Spaliday, and #8 Saffron Moon. Let’s pick two of those three to put in the exotics along with Gimme a Nother. Saffron Moon makes the most sense in this race. She’s 2-for-2 on the Tampa turf including a big win last time in the Grade 3 Endeavour Stakes. The best value of the Brown trio will be Venencia, a stakes-winning mare with upside who ran third behind Saffron Moon in the Endeavour.

The Play: Bet #7 Gimme a Nother (5-2) to win and box her in exactas and trifectas with #4 Venencia (6-1), and #8 Saffron Moon (9-5).