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.

Noel Michaels’ Weekend Winners is brought to you by Horseplayers.com, the official online qualifying site of the Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) and National Horseplayers Championship (NHC). Horseplayers.com offers low-cost feeders every day and BCBC and NHC qualifiers every weekend, and it’s the only site where you can qualify for the $1.25 million BCBC. It’s free to sign up – click here to get information about registering and how to enter contests.

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, July 1

The Fourth of July holiday weekend starts out with a bang for racing fans on Saturday with a tremendous 11-race program at Ellis Park, led by several stakes races originally scheduled for Churchill Downs. The centerpiece of the card is the Grade 1 Stephen Foster Stakes, which is a Breeders’ Cup Challenge Series “Win and You’re In” race on the road to the Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic. There will be six stakes on the card in all, with the $400,000 Fleur de Lis Stakes topping the undercard on what should be an excellent day of racing and wagering at Ellis Park. Have a great weekend.

Ellis Park, Race 8, $400,000 Fleur de Lis Stakes, 4:22 p.m. ET

The Grade 2 Fleur de Lis will be run at 1 1/8 miles on the main track and drew a field of eight fillies and mares. The race is headlined by the favorite, #6 A Mo Reay trained by Brad Cox. A Mo Reay exits a fourth-place finish in the Grade 1 La Troienne Stakes presented by TwinSpires in a race that snapped her three-race winning streak, during which she racked-up victories in the Grade 1 Beholder Mile Stakes at Santa Anita Park in addition to the Grade 3 Bayakoa Stakes at Oaklawn Park and the Pago Hop Stakes at Fair Grounds. Today’s race is a tough spot, but the field is considerably softer than the bunch that beat her last time. This race represents an excellent opportunity for a rebound. The horse with the best chance at an upset is #1 Bellamore, who ships in from her base at Santa Anita for trainer Simon Callaghan off of a turf loss last time out in the Grade 1 Gamely Stakes. Bellamore shows only two recent dirt races in her past performances and both were very good second-place finishes behind a couple of the toughest Distaffers in training, including a runner-up finish behind Adare Manor in April’s Grade 2 Santa Maria Stakes and a second to Played Hard in last fall’s Grade 3 Falls City Stakes at Churchill Downs.

The Play: Bet #6 A Mo Reay (8-5) to win and play her in an exacta box with #1 Bellamore (5-1).

Ellis Park, Race 10, $1 million Stephen Foster Stakes, 5:26 p.m. ET

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Saturday’s feature race is the Grade 1 Stephen Foster to be run at 1 1/8 miles on the main track. It’s a great race that attracted many of the best older horses in training who are the principals in the handicap division. Ken McPeek seems to have this race in his crosshairs as the trainer of perhaps both of the top contenders in the race, #4 Rattle N Roll and #5 Smile Happy, and the winner of the race is very likely to come down to a battle between that duo. Rattle N Roll is the hottest older horse in training in 2023 with back-to-back-to-back wins in the Grade 3 Blame Stakes, the Grade 3 Pimlico Special Stakes Presented by Bulleit Bourbon, and the Grade 3 Ben Ali Stakes in his last three outings. Rattle N Roll is a late runner who hasn’t always gotten a decent pace to chase lately yet still keeps on winning. He could be ready to step up today and earn his first career Grade 1 win. Smile Happy was once a hot commodity on the road to the 2022 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve as the winner of the 2021 Kentucky Jockey Club Stakes and runner-up in the 2022 Toyota Blue Grass Stakes. He has looked great in his current comeback as a 4-year-old, capped by a big win at Churchill Downs last time out in the Grade 2 Alysheba Stakes Presented by Sentient Jet, in which he beat Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes Presented by Baccarat winner Art Collector by two lengths and earned a huge speed figure. That race served notice to the rest of the division that Smile Happy is back and he means business, and he shouldn’t lose if he’s able to show up today with another similar effort.

The Play:  Bet #5 Smile Happy (3-1) to win and box him in the exacta with his stablemate, #4 Rattle N Roll (4-1).