Speaker 1: It's the year nineteen ninety in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: where a horse race is about to get started. A
Speaker 1: thick fog has settled on Delta Down's race course. Visibility
Speaker 1: for this one mile race is almost zero. Nine competitors
Speaker 1: head to the stalls and wait. It seems like winning
Speaker 1: is going to be a close your eyes and hope situation,
Speaker 1: but jockey Sylvester car Mush has a sneaky plan to
Speaker 1: take them all by surprise. Hey, welcome to the poolroom
Speaker 1: where we celebrate the winners, losers, and the weird stuff between.
Speaker 1: I'm Tony Armstrong. Sylvester Carrmusch was an experienced jockey, celebrated
Speaker 1: even throughout his career. He finished more than thirteen hundred races.
Speaker 1: But one day in January nineteen ninety, he saw an
Speaker 1: opportunity that he just couldn't resist. Well, I say, sow,
Speaker 1: but no one could see much of anything, and that
Speaker 1: was the point. On this particular winter's day, a blanket
Speaker 1: of fog had settled on the race course. Sylvester knew
Speaker 1: he was basically hidden from view. He couldn't see the
Speaker 1: guy next to him, and that guy couldn't see him either.
Speaker 1: A daring thought cross Sylvester's mind, What if maybe he
Speaker 1: and his horse, a five year old stallion named Landing Officer,
Speaker 1: took a little shortcut like to the end of the track.
Speaker 1: As the gate song opened, eight horses shot out. Landing
Speaker 1: Officer wasn't one of them. Sylvester had walked his horse
Speaker 1: to the finish line, hiding them both in the dense fog.
Speaker 1: It was a short race. A mile doesn't leave a
Speaker 1: lot of room for pulling off a great heist. Sylvester
Speaker 1: gripped the reins and listened closely. The other horses took
Speaker 1: the first corner, then the second. The crowd caught brief
Speaker 1: glimpses as the horses faded in and out of the fog. Finally,
Speaker 1: our sneaky jockey herd galloping footsteps nearby. It was time
Speaker 1: to make his move. Sylvester took off. Landing Officer picked up.
Speaker 1: The other horses were close, but the finish line was closer.
Speaker 1: Sylvester crossed the finish with a huge lead of twenty
Speaker 1: four lengths or about sixty meters, only one point two
Speaker 1: second short of the track record. Now I'm no jockey,
Speaker 1: but I wonder if the scam might have gone down
Speaker 1: more easily if Sylvester had won by say, five lengths,
Speaker 1: maybe not so close to the record anyway. Officials reported
Speaker 1: at the time that there was something odd about Landing Officer.
Speaker 1: It didn't seem like the horse had run a whole mile,
Speaker 1: especially not at that speed. It wasn't breathless or anything
Speaker 1: you might say. Landing Officers seemed like he'd simply walked
Speaker 1: to the finish line. One of the other jockeys quickly objected.
Speaker 1: He claimed he'd been leading the race when a horse
Speaker 1: appeared from nowhere, then disappeared into the fog. When they
Speaker 1: reviewed the footage, the stewards only saw eight horses come
Speaker 1: by the first time, then nine at the finish. Sylvester
Speaker 1: swore they were wrong. He said he'd led from the
Speaker 1: beginning yet nah. After deliberating for a few minutes, Landing
Speaker 1: Officer was disqualified. Sylvester was immediately suspended from the track
Speaker 1: for the rest of the season. After a court hearing,
Speaker 1: he was given a ten year suspension from racing. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: he only served eight years, but the police charged him
Speaker 1: with a felony theft by fraud. Sylvester was sentenced to
Speaker 1: thirty days in jail. After paying a small fine, he
Speaker 1: only spent ten days behind bars. By the time he
Speaker 1: retired from racing, Sylvester Carmush had been a prolific jockey,
Speaker 1: so much so that he inspired a new generation. His son,
Speaker 1: Kendrick Carmusch, is a multi graded stakes winning jockey who
Speaker 1: started more than twenty three thousand races, including the Kentucky Derby.
Speaker 1: But Sylvester will always be infamous for that day in
Speaker 1: the fog, coming from nowhere to claim glory for fifteen minutes. Well,
Speaker 1: that's another episode of the pull Room in the Bag.
Speaker 1: I hope you dug this one. I'm Tony Armstrong. Have
Speaker 1: a good one.