THROWBACK POST: THE HIDDEN CROSSROADS OF HORSE RACING, NEW YORK STREET POWER & FLORIDA’S SHADOW EMPIRE (1960s–1980s)

by Jay Shapiro

Every time I research the old racing world—New York, Miami, Jersey, the barns, the paddocks, the nightclubs—I’m reminded that the lines between horsemen, hustlers, bookmakers, loan sharks, kosher butchers, and Ivy League owners were never as separate as people want to believe.

Behind every stable gate at Belmont, every smoky backroom at Aqueduct, every neon club in Miami Beach, there was a quiet underworld of fixers, bookmakers, shylocks, “investors,” and characters who floated between racetracks, social clubs, and beachfront condos.

Many of the names aren’t famous in movies, but they were legends on the backstretch and in the underbelly of New York.
Some were Jewish bookmakers, some were Italian earners, some were horse players who knew every jockey’s weakness and every trainer’s habit.
Some fled to Florida in the 1970s when the heat got too strong.
Some built entire little empires around the horses.

Below are the names of men who shaped that era—some known, some forgotten, some feared, some loved.
All were part of the world where New York mobs, Jewish racketeers, Miami syndicates, and the horse racing industry crossed paths from the 1960s–1980s.

🏇 THE RACING CONNECTION: TRACKSIDE POWER BROKERS

In the 60s and 70s, before corporate ownership took over, horse racing in New York was practically its own neighborhood.
Names like Abraham “Abe Allen” Allenberg, Benjamin “Benny” Greenberg, Benny Leventhal, Milton “Buddy” Spitzer, Jack Freidlander, Irwin Garten, Ben Gains, and Hyman Pincus were part of the old-school bookmaker tradition—guys who could calculate odds faster than a modern computer and who practically lived between Belmont, Yonkers, and the OTB parlors.

Then you had the turf characters whose families straddled legit and not-so-legit trades—men like:

  • Louis Di Napoli & Vincent Di Napoli (both tied to labor and construction rackets yet always seen at the tracks),

  • Joseph “Joe Z” D’Ercole,

  • Carlo “Charlie Broad” Brudner,

  • Harry “The Turk” Cohen,

  • Nathan “Nat” Masselli,

  • Louis “Babe” Silvers,

  • Robert “Bobby” Erra, and

  • Michael & Robert Erra, who were known around the Yonkers and Roosevelt Raceway harness circuits.

When the harness tracks lit up at night, these men were as much part of the show as the horses themselves.

🟦 JEWISH STREET GENIUSES, FIXERS & BACKROOM BRAINS

From the 50s through the 80s, Jewish gangsters weren’t just Meyer Lansky stereotypes—they were bookmakers, clever accountants, loan men, and sometimes the most important “quiet partners” in racing stables or Miami real estate.

This world included:
Jack Pearlman, Harold Pearlman, Murray Yunes, Rubin “Ruby” Lazarus, Philip Goldstein, Samuel Schnepper, Saul Postman, Jack Grey, Saul “Solly” Eder, Max “Little Maxie Raymond” Eder, Al Deutch, Milton Jacobs, Al “Jock” Gordon, Al Mancino, Morris “Max Courtney” Schnertzler, and more.

Many of these men were the “brains”—the dealmakers, the odds-writers, the quiet money behind horses, clubs, and South Florida properties.

Some were connected to the garment district.
Some ran bookmaking operations out of tiny delis or backrooms of Brooklyn social clubs.
Some sat in Miami Beach hotels like the Delano, the Eden Roc, or the Carillon when things got too hot in New York.

And almost all of them loved the horses.

🟥 THE ITALIAN SIDE: SOCIAL CLUBS, RACE FIXERS & STRONG EARNERS

The Italian figures—particularly from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island, Queens—formed another layer of the story.

Names like:
Salvatore “Sam” Apuzzo, Pasquale “Patsy” Avitabile, Louis “Gigi” Arminante, Gaetano “Tommy” Delia, Frank “Frankie Beef” Fiorello, Carmine Greco & Frank Greco, Thomas “Tommy Trump” Censullo, Vincent “Fish” Cafaro, Joseph “Joe D” DeSimone, Joseph Coppo, Joseph Calomone, James “Jimmy Neal” Loia, Frank Montana, Pasquale “Big Patty” Santelli, Salvatore “Sally O” Odierno, Saverio “Sammy Black” Santora, Joseph “Joe Sass” Sarcinella, Frank “Little Farby” Serpico, and dozens more.

Some were labor guys.
Some were bookmakers.
Some were “insurance men.”
Some had real estate interests in Miami Beach, Hallandale, or Pompano—especially when the Florida racing scene exploded in the 1970s.

Florida became the great laundromat:
Sunshine, nightclubs, condos, jai alai, dog tracks, and horse racing at Gulfstream and Hialeah.
You couldn’t throw a rock in Hallandale in 1978 without hitting a wiseguy buying a condo for his girlfriend.

🟩 THE NEW YORK–FLORIDA PIPELINE

By the late 1960s, a massive migration happened—not just retirees, but bookmakers, trainers, hustlers, and club guys heading down I-95 for a second life in the sunshine states.

People like:
Artie Samurin, Candido Rodriguez, Vincent C. Rao, Charles Rao, Robert “Bobby” Rao, Joseph F. “Joe Marino” Marone, Alfred Maiorello, Frank Lesandro, Dr. Victor Dorf, Fabio DeCrestofaro, Arthur Delucci, and others were frequently spotted between Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Hollywood.

Hialeah was the cathedral.
Gulfstream was the office.
The Rascal House was the commissary.
Fontainebleau was the conference room.

And every winter, half the New York racing world followed the horses to Florida—along with the bookmakers and their muscle.

🟨 THE STORIES NO ONE TELLS ANYMORE

Some of these men were violent.
Some were brilliant.
Some were both.
Some lived double lives—CPA by day, horse syndicate partner by night.
Others ran scams around race-fixing, claiming races, drugging horses, or manipulating jockey assignments.

But most simply lived in a world where:
the racetrack, the synagogue, the social club, the deli, the clubhouse bar, and the Florida condo were all connected.

A few favorites from the list who deserve their own multi-page bios:

  • Harry “The Hat” Landou, a character out of a movie.

  • Vincent “Jimmy” Coppola, who could handicap a card better than half the pros.

  • Pellegrino “Billy the Butcher” Masselli, feared but respected.

  • Theodore “Teddy” Maritas, deeply entangled in union power.

  • Jerome “Jerry” Zarowitz, a Las Vegas visionary with deep racing ties.

Every name is a thread in the giant tapestry connecting New York, Miami, and the horse world.

🟧 WHY THIS MATTERS TODAY

For anyone studying the backdrop of the 60s–80s racing world—or building a film universe around it—the secret truth is:

Horse racing was the great meeting place of the American underworld.
Jewish bookies, Italian crew members, Irish fixers, Wall Street gamblers, Miami wiseguys, crooked jockeys, runaway grooms, and millionaire owners all drank in the same bars.

This was the real world behind the glamour—messy, brilliant, dangerous, and unforgettable.

And the names above?
They were the characters long before Hollywood ever wrote a script.