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