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When an unusual series of longshot victories sparked talk of a coordinated betting scheme across major tracks on August 9, industry watchers noticed a familiar pattern. The strategy used at Saratoga and Monmouth Park closely mirrored a blueprint first executed years earlier at Delaware Park.

The Delaware Park Blueprint

Nine years ago on July 6, 2017, Delaware Park saw a sudden, highly unusual flood of targeted betting. Former jockey Abel Castellano won three races from six starters on his very first day as a head trainer. That same afternoon, racing operations connected to the family of South Florida businessman Giuseppe Iadisernia scored multiple victories down at Gulfstream Park in Florida.

The key indicator of that 2017 Delaware Park gamble was how the win results distorted the betting pools:

• Abnormally Low Multi-Race Payouts: One of Castellano’s Delaware Park winners, Mom’s a Cougar, won at long odds ($24.40 payout on a $2 bet). When paired in a Daily Double wager with a 6-1 winner in the following race, the combined payout was just $20.10—an abnormally small return revealing that heavy, focused money had been funnelled directly into the pool.

• Cross-Track Coordination: By targeting multiple tracks – Delaware Park, Finger Lakes, and Gulfstream Park – bettors overseas were able to construct high-yield parlay bets tied to horses linked to the same underlying network.

How the Saratoga Monmouth Betting Coup Followed the Same Script

The August 9 races—spanning Saratoga, Monmouth Park, and Colonial Downs—replicated very similar elements of the 2017 Delaware Park event:

1. Shared Connections: Just as the 2017 Delaware Park horses shared hidden organizational ties, all six horses in the August 9 sequence were prepared out of the same facility (Fair Hill Training Center) under trainer Angel Quiroz. Several horses were transferred or linked to ownership groups connected to the original Delaware Park event, including Iadisernia.
2. Defying Expectations: The August 9 runners were returning from long layoffs and performed far beyond their listed odds, just like the surprising longshots at Delaware Park in 2017.
3. Pool Distortions: Monmouth Park experienced the same payout anomaly seen at Delaware Park years earlier. A $37.20 winner (The Great Amira) and a $9.60 winner (Tepeyac) combined for a Daily Double that paid an extraordinarily low $25.60.

While racing authorities continue to review the August 9 races, the connection back to Delaware Park shows that this tactic was not an isolated incident. These same connections may have attempted and failed at similar betting coups during that nine-year span—we may never know—but it appears that they did succeed in smashing fashion back in 2017.