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, Feb. 8

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 9, $150,000 Suncoast Stakes, post time 4:14 p.m. ET

The Suncoast Stakes has drawn a field of eight fillies set to race 1 mile and 40 yards and the top finishers will earn some useful qualifying points for the Longines Kentucky Oaks. In addition to some promising fillies, the raceday at Tampa has also attracted some top out-of-town jockeys, and those jockeys could turn out to be the key to handicapping Saturday’s top races. Irad Ortiz Jr. is in town and he grabs the mount aboard #4 Her Laugh, who is undefeated in two outings for trainer Whit Beckman including a 1 1/16-mile Fair Grounds win last time out in the Untapable Stakes where she led from start to finish. There doesn’t appear to be any more talented horse in the bunch and it doesn’t look like any other entrant in the race will be able to run with her early and stay with her late. Jockey Junior Alvarado will also be at Tampa this Saturday, and in the Suncoast he has the mount on #2 Dancing Magic, who has the look of an overlay based on morning-line odds of 8-1. Dancing Magic has exclusively been in sprints in her seven lifetime races so far, but her career-best effort came last time out when winning Tampa’s Gasparilla Stakes in her longest outing to date at seven furlongs. She finished that race with plenty left in the tank and it gives hope that she could be just as effective here at this route distance. There is a pair of horses with some decent stakes credentials such as #3 Italian Soiree and #6 La Cara, but nothing about those low-odds horses appears to stand out in this field. Therefore, when filling out your exotic wagers, why not use a lightly-raced challenger at better odds that looks like a potential up-and-comer? That horse is #5 Junta, a December maiden winner at Tampa who overcame some traffic to win sharply at first asking going seven furlongs. She should only get better at this longer distance in her second career start.

The Play: Bet on #4 Her Laugh (5-2) to win and play her in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Dancing Magic (8-1) and #5 Junta (12-1).

New to racing? Let us explain…

An overlay is a horse whose odds are higher than what you, the bettor, consider to be his or her true chance of winning the race. For example, if you think a contender in a race should carry odds of 3-1 or 4-1 against its opposition but instead it is carrying 8-1 odds in the parimutuel pool (which reflects the overall betting public’s opinion), then that horse is an overlay and it’s time to place a bet!

Tampa Bay Downs, Race 11, $250,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes, post time 5:14 p.m. ET

The Sam F. Davis Stakes has attracted a competitive field of 10 3-year-olds that will race 1 1/16 miles for a purse of $250,000 and qualifying points for the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve. The horse to beat at very attractive 6-1 odds on the morning line is #2 Treaty of Rome from trainer Chad Brown, who has been bringing live horses to Tampa Bay Downs all season with 41% wins from 27 starters after sweeping both of Tampa’s graded stakes races last weekend. For this race, he brings in this good-looking maiden winner going a mile at Aqueduct two races ago who ran a solid effort in defeat last time out when second by a neck in Gulfstream Park’s $150,000 Mucho Macho Man Stakes. He was getting to the winner in that race with every stride only to run out of real estate at a mile, but he is unlikely to be denied again in this longer two-turn assignment at 1 1/16 miles. The horse he will have to beat is the morning-line favorite #6 Owen Almighty, who has yet to ever run a bad race including last time out when winning the local $92,000 Pasco Stakes at seven furlongs before getting disqualified for interfering with another horse while racing in the turn and placed fifth. Owen Almighty also won last year’s $175,000 Ellis Park Juvenile Stakes going seven furlongs and placed a competitive second behind Jonathan’s Way in the Grade 3 Iroquois Stakes last September at Churchill Downs. This will be his first attempt in a two-turn race, but it is difficult to envision him finishing outside the top three. Finally, the other slot in your exactas and trifectas should be reserved for #7 Poster, who makes his first start in two months since winning last fall’s Grade 2 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct to push his record to 3-for-3. He seems to have no shortcomings based on distance or ability based on what we’ve seen so far.

The Play: Bet #2 Treaty of Rome (6-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #6 Owen Almighty (2-1) and #7 Poster (4-1).

New to racing? Let us explain…

Morning line: In horse racing, each racetrack hires an oddsmaker to give estimates about what kind of support a horse will receive from bettors in the parimutuel pool, which collects wagers from everyone gambling on a particular race. These estimates are called morning-line odds and are usually announced a day or two before the race is run. The morning-line odds are a starting point when a race becomes open for betting and will change as bettors begin to make their wagers. The final odds can be very different from the morning line odds for each horse by the time the race starts.