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, Jan. 18

Fair Grounds, Race 11, $175,000 Louisiana Stakes presented by Relyne GI by Hagyard, 6 p.m. ET

Older horses take to the track in the Grade 3 Louisiana Stakes as a field of 10 is set to go 1 1/16 miles on the main track. There is an abundance of speed entered in this race and that should help the chances of the horses hoping to come from off the pace, including the favorite, #1 Hit Show, who already looks like the horse to beat. Hit Show exits a somewhat sub-par effort when third in the Grade 2 Clark Stakes Presented by Norton Healthcare last time, but he enjoyed an exceptional season throughout 2024 in races like this one with wins in three straight graded stakes between August and October. This race sets up for his late-running, stalking style. Another closer coming from even farther back in the pack, #5 Skinner will also get a good setup and will be dangerous if able to replicate his effort from last time when he won Del Mar’s Grade 3 Native Diver Stakes. If you are looking for a straight win bet, Skinner’s morning-line odds are better than Hit Show and he could be a better choice with Fair Grounds’ leading rider Jose Ortiz aboard for new trainer Cherie DeVaux, who is winning 31% of her starts at this meet. You can round out your exotics in this race with #2 Warrior Johny, a stakes winner at Parx Racing two races ago who finished third behind Saudi Crown in Fair Grounds’ Tenacious Stakes at this distance last month and boasts very fast recent speed figures.

The Play: Bet on #5 Skinner (9-2) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #1 Hit Show (5-2), and #2 Warrior Johny (10-1).

Fair Grounds, Race 12, $250,000 Lecomte Stakes, 6:30 p.m. ET

Optical winning in November at Churchill Downs. (Coady Media)

Three-year-olds on the road to the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve take center stage in the Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes to see which of the 14 entrants can take the next step. Let’s pick an upset in this spot with a runner that is a giant overlay on the tote board in #5 Optical, a colt who comes in with two wins at Churchill Downs including a 14-length maiden win in September and an allowance win last time over McAfee, the half-brother to soon-to-be champion filly Thorpedo Anna who was the morning-line favorite in the Jerome Stakes before being scratched. Blinkers come on for Optical, the horse shows a bunch of blazing workouts in preparation for this stretch-out, and there is clearly a lot of upside here at 20-1 odds on the morning line. Another horse in the race with two wins and significant upside is #11 Disco Time, who has won impressively in both starts to date for trainer Brad Cox. The favorite will be #13 Built based on his Fair Grounds win a month ago in the Gun Runner Stakes with a fast speed figure. A repeat is not out of reach in this spot, but he’s drawn out in the parking lot from this wide post position and he is unlikely to get away with murder again today on another easy unpressured pace.

The Play: Bet #5 Optical (20-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #11 Disco Time (9-2) and #13 Built (3-1).