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. 25

Top older horses take center stage this weekend as Gulfstream Park hosts its blockbuster Pegasus World Cup day 13-race card on Saturday, Jan. 25. It’s one of the days of winter racing that truly can’t be missed. Best of luck and enjoy the races.

Gulfstream Park, Race 12, $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes Presented by Qatar Racing, 4:55 p.m. ET

A full field of top turf runners will go to post for this Grade 1 going 1 1/8 miles on the turf course. Talent runs deep in this race and the key to finding the top finisher(s) could be the distance, which might prove to be a little too short for some of the top challengers in the field, including morning-line favorites #5 Integration and #7 Nations Pride. As the winner of the 2024 Arlington Million Stakes and the 2023 Canadian International (both Grade 1s at 1 ¼ miles), Nations Pride still might be able to win this race at a distance that is short of optimum, but he won’t be the top pick. The horse to beat will be #3 Mi Hermano Ramon, who is in career-best form and has emerged as one of the West’s top turf horses in this distance range. He won Del Mar’s Grade 2 Seabiscuit Handicap in November and came within a half a length of holding off Johannes last time out when second in the Grade 2 San Gabriel Stakes at Santa Anita. Johannes has been nearly unbeatable for the last year and was exiting a close second-place finish in the FanDuel Breeders’ Cup Mile Presented by PDJF in his last race. If Johannes was entered in this race, he would be the favorite. Mi Hermano Ramon finished three-quarters of a length behind Johannes, and he’s listed at bargain 8-1 odds on the morning line. After Mi Hermano Ramon and Nations Pride, the other horse you want on your tickets is #4 Win for the Money, who won the Grade 1 Rogers Woodbine Mile last September and exits a good stakes tune-up on this course in his last race.

The Play: Bet on #3 Mi Hermano Ramon (8-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #4 Win for the Money (12-1) and #7 Nations Pride (2-1).

Gulfstream Park, Race 13, $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational Stakes, 5:40 p.m. ET

This weekend’s headline Grade 1 event drew a full field of older horses set to race 1 1/8 miles on the Gulfstream main track for a purse of $3 million. The lineup features #9 Mystik Dan, the winner of the 2024 Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve who will be making his 4-year-old debut in a tough spot. His name recognition is very likely to make him an underlay and he doesn’t have the recent form to deserve inclusion on your tickets. The other big name in the field is 2023 Longines Breeders’ Cup Classic winner #4 White Abarrio, a horse who has been making his way back into best form lately for Gulfstream’s leading trainer, Saffie Joseph Jr., following a tough first half of 2024 when in the care of a different barn. He suffered a brutal trip when losing Gulfstream’s Grade 3 Mr. Prospector Stakes at seven furlongs Dec. 28 but is now prepped and ready for this return to 1 1/8 miles with a record of six wins and a second in eight prior lifetime outings at Gulfstream Park. Gulfstream’s dirt races at this distance have been notorious for a decade of favoring the inside posts, and White Abarrio is well-drawn in post 4. Another contender that will benefit from a good inside post is #2 Saudi Crown, who shows plenty of high speed figures up and down his past performances the last two years. Saudi Crown is fast, and he could loom the controlling speed in this race from an inside draw, which makes him an extraordinarily dangerous threat to go wire-to-wire. The other intriguing challenger in this field is #11 Locked, a horse who seemed destined to contend in the 2024 Triple Crown races until an injury temporarily sidetracked his career. He has come back with a vengeance lately, however, with two wins including the Grade 2 Cigar Mile Handicap Presented by Twinspires.com. From a better post, he might’ve been the top choice, but even from post 11 it’s impossible to ignore his seemingly unlimited upside.

The Play: Bet #4 White Abarrio (3-1) to win and play him in exacta and trifecta boxes with #2 Saudi Crown (9-2) and #11 Locked (5-2).