November 2, 2020 • 21 mins
An environmental activist comically blew up a golf major trophy ceremony to deliver his message to the masses. "Junglebird" reveals the details of the greatest videobomb in sports history. And the shocking story of a Texas jockey illegally buzzering race horses to victory.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Trickeration, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
to another episode of the Trickeration podcast, the number one
podcast and only podcast about deception and sports cubs. First Basement,
Mark Grace famously said, if you're not cheating, you're not trying.
(00:22):
And this is the podcast where we try to unpack
all this skirting of the rules. Today we've got not one,
but two stories for you. First, an interview with the
fan who famously hijacked the festivities at the US Open,
and later a horse racing shock jockey who has caught
in the act and paid the ultimate price. Be looking
(01:02):
at and were failed with fifty farms and you know,
all these bright lights and in your mind you're not
going to go over the wall, and then the adrenaline
takes over, you know, as soon as you step over
on stuff field and if it can go wrong. This
is Andrew Dudley. He also goes by jungle Bird. A
(01:23):
few years ago, at a Notre Dame football game, he
sprinted on the field, scooped up the ball and ran
into the end zone. Once at a Premier League soccer game,
during a penalty kick, Jungle Bird ran on the pitch
and kicked the ball right at goalie Tim Howard. I
want to hit the ball. I heads it's so straight
and went straight into his arms. But jungle birds. Most
iconic moment, his mona Lisa of Mayhem, came at the
(01:46):
two thousand twelve U S Open and Golf when he
comically inserted himself in the middle of the trophy presentation.
But before we hear how he did this, it's important
to know why. There's been recent reports them are losing
one soccer field where the forest every second, which is
the size of New York City every day, which is
just crazy. It's a wonder that the planet is still
(02:07):
functioning as it is now. So it was at that
position where I decided that I wasn't going to accept
the way it was. I was going to take our
first step of back to and then that's when I
decided to start kind of video bomb and s form
events to raise awareness. And rather than trying to tell
people to do and things wrong, it was more about
let's make people laugh, you know, let's deliver this in
a humorous way. And have you always been a jokester
(02:33):
in a prankster? Were you a class clown? Well back
in school when I was a kid. I used to
make this a bad noise in class to get, you know,
the teacher's attention and get some laughs out of my friends.
It's a like a bit of a lash bellowed in
the classroom. But I got older, I used to do
in restaurants sort of realized that you've got everyone's attention
in a quiet room. Back in two thousand and twelve,
(02:56):
Jungle Bird bought a ticket to the US Open with
the goal of delivering his tap deforestation message to the masses.
It's live broadcasts, so you can get in between a
live camera and the action. That would be the golden opportunity.
The trophy ceremony was the obvious one to do it.
And how much did liquid courage player role here? Was
that a motivating factor at all? I have a code
(03:17):
of ethics of how how I operate, don't drink alcohol.
It was just the rest or was respect law enforcement
in those kind of things. You see a lot of
activism where people are committing prophecy damage and offending people.
I don't think that's very effective at all. And I
think the second you do that, I think people's that
people kind of glaze over. You know that it has
(03:38):
the opposite effect. That's why I've always tried to use
humor as a starting point. On a foggy Sunday, Webb
Simpson held on for a one shot victory at the
Olympic Club, his first major championship and the crowning achievement
of his career, but he would soon be overshadowed at
his own ceremony. As the final ball went and then
(04:01):
they started to clear the ete green, they reporting kind
of ropes around the sides as well, and I was
able to, you know, just kind of walk onto the green,
and that's the security guy grabs and windows like you
shouldn't be here, your approval or whatever. I turned around
to kind of cuts into the crowd, but then it
not gone. I remember standing and getting ready to you know,
your knaves are off the roof, and I just start
remembered in the back of my mind thinking that you
(04:22):
shouldn't be doing this. If you mess it up, it's
gonna be super emboglous. And you know, I kind of
just pushed myself from left foot forward. The white will followed,
and the adrenaline just kicks him. The US Open trophy
ceremony is as formal as it gets. Bob cost Us
in a blue blazer and tie, is interviewing Simpson in
a polo cardigan cradling an eighteen inch sterling silver jug
(04:44):
and all of a sudden, standing between the two of
them and the camera is Jungle Bird with a big
smile on his face, sporting a red and white Union
Jack mohawk beanie and a matching windbreaker. I was so
that I stopped at the white position because it was
pretty much in focus on the camera. I just remember
(05:06):
all these lights going off and the photographs being taken.
Simpson's answer to a question about his slow start is
interrupted by this sound stop the photo station, and before
he can get out, a third bird call U s
g A. President Mike Davis is on Jungle Bird like
(05:26):
a cat. His reflexes were lightning fast, and I didn't
see it coming for sure. Grabbed me and dragged me
out the way and then threw me into a bunker
and I managed to stay upright, which which was quite lucky.
And then the San Francisco Police Department came and they
arrested me and led me awayne handcuffs, and people were
(05:46):
clapping as he was getting let at the steps, and
then the search of me for drugs and stuff like that,
and then they realized I wasn't really a threat, and
then they were quite friendly, you know, they were quite
having a laugh out of it. And then they put
me in the van and then drove me down to
the San Francisco Free Station or the bad cages I
call it. And how long were you in jail for her?
A good couple of hours, So I think they were
(06:07):
working out what to do with me because I haven't
had a ticket to the event, I hadn't trespassed so
and I didn't do anything offensive. I was fully closed,
so in the end it just let me go. The
first thing that when I got out of jail was
going to the local bar and have a couple of years.
How do you balance your desire to get your message
out with taking away from one of the most important
(06:30):
moments in someone else's life. It's a It's a fine line,
isn't it. You know, my job was to try and
raise awareness to the problem of climates. I'm also conscious
that it was a very important moment for webs. I
trust that he understood that the reason for it after
the fact, and he's always been very understanding of it
from what I can see, and I think that I've
had interviews a web Simpson sent and he said, you know,
(06:53):
if he walks into a restaurant and his family, people
are and he's definitely had a good sense of you.
But if had He tweeted me one time with one
of the jack hats on the rito and he said,
I'm not going to be coming after you. After the
US Open video bombing jungle Bird went viral, he was
interviewed on Kimmel and Leno. Imitators popped up at sporting events.
Jungle Bird was a popular Halloween costume that year. It
(07:15):
quickly became and is still the most famous sports video
bomb of all time. But why, I think it's just
the sponsorous of it. My kids are often sending medlings
most rememorable moments of TV. Its all over Facebook and
was on the news in England and stuff. You know,
the way they pan out did bring a lot of
you to the moment. And what's your message for people
(07:36):
who have a cause and aren't quite sure about how
to draw attention to it? So I was upset about
the climb, as I was upset about defoll station that
was concerned for the future of the Planet for the
children book. You know, a lot of us can sit
on the sidelines and not do anything about that. So
for me, it was taking our first step of action,
and by taking our first step of action, things begun
(07:57):
to happen. Jungle Bird started his own environmental technology company
to deal with the problem and deforestation in part of
the success of the Simpson video bar. It was kind
of a door opener, to be honest, from that activist
a moment. It kind of showed my commitment and also
my commitment to other people. But then also you can
(08:18):
show them that you've been in handcuffs to stand off
for the natural environment, and that really is a game
changing for those guys as well, because they really feel
that you are kind of walking the talk. And what
was your plan for an encore the next year at
the US Open? I was going to do the same
thing again, and I flew in from England and then
when I landed in Philadelphia, I got pulled aside by
(08:38):
two T. S A Agents and I got under a
letter and it was from the U s g A
Golf Association kind of warning me not to attend the
event or I could get arrested. But I've got an
FBI number now somethink a lot of activists have returned.
When I got my visa to emigrate to America, I
found out that I've got this number. So whenever a
comin I can sometimes get questioned, like an extra level
(08:59):
of question, like what are you doing what you want
to do? These days? At every major golf tournament, jungle
birds photo is posted at the entrance to keep him out.
Not being able to attend live golf is a small
price for jungle Bird to pay. If you really believe
in someone, you know, that sense of satisfaction that you
(09:21):
ought to take. Understand this is very to me, has
been very empowering. You know, you will the risk of
getting into some serious trouble, but it's it's there's nothing
like it, you know. I found a calling, basically, and
I think if you're ever lucky enough so to find
not in life that you're doing someone that you really
truly believe in them, it's great achievements. I think. Alright,
(09:41):
time for a quick break. On the other side, a
story about athletes and buzzers that has nothing to do
with the Houston Astros. I'd always known that there were
dodgy things happening behind the scenes, and that you know,
people want to achieve. It changed me a bit to
have become up nose to nose against it and to
(10:02):
really see the reality in Diana Ray was a staff
writer for the Dallas Observer. Being in Texas, she often
wrote about oil, energy and NASA, and occasionally horse racing,
a sport she had developed an interest in thanks to
a tattered book she carried around. That book see this
get you know that that's one of those books that
changed my life because that it opened up a world
(10:24):
that I didn't really know about. And I just became
fascinated with the world of horse racing and how these
you know, horse and man work together. Then how also
the trainer is so key and then you know some
people follow the rules, some people don't, and it just
really fascinated me. So I would sort of keep an
eye on it. And then, uh, you know, this Roman
(10:46):
Chapa things just popped up right in my back yard.
This Roman Chapa thing happened during a fifty horse racing
stakes at the Sam Houston Race Park, which is a
cry from Churchill Downs. You will probably see plenty of
(11:06):
people wearing leopard prints lots of bets being made, lots
of cheap beer being pulled. No one's wearing fancy hats.
We don't even see throw breads down here. It's a
very low rent situation. Running in the ninth race of
the night was Quiet Acceleration, a horse with a distant
connection to past greatness, you know, like how everyone in
England probably could claim some relation to royalty, the same
(11:29):
thing where he has in his background the legendary secretariat.
And then give me a splint you can kind of
see it a little bit in the horse's this beautiful
espresso brown, gorgeous creature, a little bit of white on
the edges, and just really beautiful force. The race began
and Quiet Acceleration was running in the middle of the pack,
(11:51):
boxed in by the rest of the field. It didn't
look good for him. As they're going through the backstretch
and then rounding towards home, we suddenly see Quiet Eleration
began to make some progress forward and right at the end,
like magic, one of those beautiful moments, Quiet Accelerations that
(12:11):
just zooms forward and gets to the finish line, first
hits the wire and he wins, and it's a great moment.
Every racetrack has a camera set up on one side
of the finish line to capture a potential photo finish,
and from that side everything looks fine. When Chappa jolted
across the finish line very quickly, however, there was a photographer,
(12:34):
Jack Cody, who was shooting from the other rail and
he caught a slightly different picture. Unaware that anything was amiss, Cody,
like he does after every race, sent out his photos
(12:54):
to Sam Houston Racetrack officials, who uploaded them to their website.
When he starts getting a bunch of text messages and
phone calls from Chapa saying, hey, there was this one photo.
You take it down to you please get rid of it,
please please, please, please please. Unbeknownst to Cody, one of
the photos he posted online showed in Chapa's left hand
(13:14):
an electronic device the size of a cigarette lighter. To
those in the know, it was unmistakably a buzzer used
to send powerful shocks into a horse to jolt it forward.
Then the local press started digging in. The initial guy
that was covering for us is like, um, this is
(13:34):
about forces. You're still carrying it with you like a
WEIRDO take it. So I was like, okay, cool, So
I started looking into it. But after I'm reporting anything,
I like to go back to the beginning. So if
I'm writing about trains or high speed rail, I want
to go back to the invention of the wheel. When
I'm writing about horse racing, I went back and first
(13:56):
did a whole bunch of research to understand horse racing history,
and then it's it's also it's history in Texas. And
then once I feel like I know everything a real
door could know about the subject, then I start really
reporting and asking questions and reaching out to people. Ray
found out quickly that Texas horse racing was a very
insular world that didn't take kindly to a probing outside reporter.
(14:20):
So you have to sort of feel your way in
and know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody to
get them to talk to you. And that's where you
get weird and stalkery and start texting and blowing up
their phones. It's been like Hi, Hi, please talk to
me please. Ray managed to speak with Cody the photographer,
and Dallas Keen, the trainer. As for Roman Chapa, Oh,
(14:41):
I got his phone number and I called it over
and over again, left messages, texted um, tried different email,
blew up as Twitter because I wanted to hear his side.
I I've always felt that his side is not necessarily justifiable,
but interesting maybe worth hearing. You know, there's two sides
(15:03):
every story. On one hand, the jockeys honestly are under
an enormous amount of pressure to win. On the other hand,
the horses are just doing their best and don't understand
any of what's going on. They're just, you know, oh,
time to race. I love to run and they want
to be the other wars. So it's complicated. You know.
I don't like what Roman Chapa did, but I've thought
(15:23):
about it a lot ever since, and you know, in
some ways you can almost understand it. And are we
to assume that this was the only race that Roman
Chapa used a buzzer or did they look back at
other races and see similar surges and think to themselves,
even though we don't have evidence, this must have been
going on for a long time. I mean, no one
(15:47):
really knows that for sure. He had already been suspended
twenty five times for Britain rules in the past, so
he already had a fairly long and substantial record, and
I don't know they've necessarily been caught with a buzzer before,
but he had been caught early in his queer back
in the nineties using a nail. I mean, what's so
disgusting about this really is forrces like to run, so
(16:09):
the idea that he just sit there and then shock
them or stabbed them or do anything painful to them,
it's just appalling. It's basically taking some kind of an
electric zap to the flank of a marathon runner, which
if anyone did that they would be arrested and in
a lot of trouble. And as a jockey before this incident,
(16:32):
how successful was Roman Chapa. Roman Chapa was good. He
was good enough that he had a fairly decent record
and was winning in Texas racing. He was a not
undistinguished writer who had had a career that had already
spanned more than twenty years. But you know, he was
never going to be riding for Tuppy Derby. At the
(16:52):
time of this incident, Chapa had won one thousand, seven
hundred and eleven races and his mounts that earned in
excess of million dollars. Very little of which had made
its way to Chapa. From what I understand, they get
fifty dollars per race versus I think a ten kind
of the person if you win, But otherwise they're having
to supplement that with doing training rides and like working
(17:16):
a lot behind the scenes. You know, it can be
a difficult living. From everything I've ever heard, Chapa has
been badly injured at least twice. At one point he
stopped breathing on the table and then he got back
in the saddle, though, and he said that was where
he was meant to be. So the more you read
about the life of the jockey, and the more you
think about what it must be like to try to
(17:37):
hustle up this living, my own anger turned to some
empathy ors some sympathy form. Is there any chance that
Roman Chapa was using a buzzer at the directive of
the trainer and he was just doing what he was told? Um, well,
it's not exactly necessarily that any jockey in such situation
(17:58):
will be doing what they're told. But there's jockeys from
my reporting I learned that are known for having a
certain reputation and that maybe you're willing to do a
little extra, or bend the rules a little bit this
way that way to give a horse and advantage. I
don't know if anyone to say, go use that buzzer,
partly because that we're very stupid of them, because who
(18:19):
wants to have exposed themselves as being the guy just
said that. But if you hire someone who is known
to use a buzzer, I think there are plenty of
ways of saying, hey, I really like the horse to
win in a way that could you know, give someone
who has that kind of reputation the right idea. Chapa's
(18:43):
case wound its way through the Texas legal system for years.
It was during one of Chapa's court appearances that Ray
finally came in contact with him. I managed to make
it down to the courthouse in time, and I don't know,
like you know that jockeys are very small. They have
to be. But at the same time, at that point
I had been chasing Chapa so long, and I had
(19:04):
been just trying to get to talk to the man
and thinking about him and trying to understand who he
was and where he was. From that I was still
shocked by how how little he was. Do you look
more sad? Than he did anything else. We hadn't shaved
in a little bit, and I found myself really feeling
sorry for him in that moment. For his role in
(19:26):
the buzzer incident. The Texas Racing Commission find Chap a
hundred thousand dollars and he was suspended from racing for
five years. However, there are these illegal races that some
people do, and I heard rumors that he was riding
in those. It's not clear that it was Chappa, but
sometime in seventeen during one of those races, and videos
(19:49):
started circulating right after because there was a collision of
two horses and a writer who looked a lot like
Chapa and who a lot of people called Chapa in
the video started making the rounds on Facebook. And whoever
that writer was was very badly injured in an illegal race.
Paris County charged him with unlawful influence in racing and
(20:10):
making false statements to an investigator the ladder, of which
he played guilty too. I finished by asking Ray what
she thought about the decision of the legal system to
get so involved in this case. You know, like it,
I think ultimately was the right thing to do. If
you don't do something and if if the law doesn't
get involved, would this keep going? Would it get worse?
(20:31):
If you're gonna do something that to a horse, it
probably helps to know that. Oh remember Roman chapla, he
buzzard a horse and look what happened to him? All right?
Thank you too, Diana Ray and Andrew Dudley a k A.
Jungle Bird for sharing their stories. For more stories from Diana,
check out Houstonia, where she is the editor in chief,
and for information about jungle birds environmental causes, check out
(20:55):
his website earth PBC dot com. And if you're liking
the podcast, please take a minute to rate and review
on iTunes. It's a big help, and also be sure
to dig into the archives for tales of cheating and
deception in all your favorite sports. Next week, we've got
a story of a Miami dolphin and an alligator that
was sent to us by a listener. So if you
have ideas for future shows, please hit the tip line
(21:15):
the email addresses Trickeration Nation at gmail dot com. I'd
love to hear from you. And as we do every week,
we check in with the legend Chris mad Doug Russo, Chris,
how do we do this week? Maddie, good job, keep
up the good work now. Thanks Chris, all right, talk
to you next week. Triggeration is a production of my
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
(21:36):
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Trickeration, a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
to another episode of the Trickeration podcast, the number one
podcast and only podcast about deception and sports cubs. First Basement,
Mark Grace famously said, if you're not cheating, you're not trying.
(00:22):
And this is the podcast where we try to unpack
all this skirting of the rules. Today we've got not one,
but two stories for you. First, an interview with the
fan who famously hijacked the festivities at the US Open,
and later a horse racing shock jockey who has caught
in the act and paid the ultimate price. Be looking
(01:02):
at and were failed with fifty farms and you know,
all these bright lights and in your mind you're not
going to go over the wall, and then the adrenaline
takes over, you know, as soon as you step over
on stuff field and if it can go wrong. This
is Andrew Dudley. He also goes by jungle Bird. A
(01:23):
few years ago, at a Notre Dame football game, he
sprinted on the field, scooped up the ball and ran
into the end zone. Once at a Premier League soccer game,
during a penalty kick, Jungle Bird ran on the pitch
and kicked the ball right at goalie Tim Howard. I
want to hit the ball. I heads it's so straight
and went straight into his arms. But jungle birds. Most
iconic moment, his mona Lisa of Mayhem, came at the
(01:46):
two thousand twelve U S Open and Golf when he
comically inserted himself in the middle of the trophy presentation.
But before we hear how he did this, it's important
to know why. There's been recent reports them are losing
one soccer field where the forest every second, which is
the size of New York City every day, which is
just crazy. It's a wonder that the planet is still
(02:07):
functioning as it is now. So it was at that
position where I decided that I wasn't going to accept
the way it was. I was going to take our
first step of back to and then that's when I
decided to start kind of video bomb and s form
events to raise awareness. And rather than trying to tell
people to do and things wrong, it was more about
let's make people laugh, you know, let's deliver this in
a humorous way. And have you always been a jokester
(02:33):
in a prankster? Were you a class clown? Well back
in school when I was a kid. I used to
make this a bad noise in class to get, you know,
the teacher's attention and get some laughs out of my friends.
It's a like a bit of a lash bellowed in
the classroom. But I got older, I used to do
in restaurants sort of realized that you've got everyone's attention
in a quiet room. Back in two thousand and twelve,
(02:56):
Jungle Bird bought a ticket to the US Open with
the goal of delivering his tap deforestation message to the masses.
It's live broadcasts, so you can get in between a
live camera and the action. That would be the golden opportunity.
The trophy ceremony was the obvious one to do it.
And how much did liquid courage player role here? Was
that a motivating factor at all? I have a code
(03:17):
of ethics of how how I operate, don't drink alcohol.
It was just the rest or was respect law enforcement
in those kind of things. You see a lot of
activism where people are committing prophecy damage and offending people.
I don't think that's very effective at all. And I
think the second you do that, I think people's that
people kind of glaze over. You know that it has
(03:38):
the opposite effect. That's why I've always tried to use
humor as a starting point. On a foggy Sunday, Webb
Simpson held on for a one shot victory at the
Olympic Club, his first major championship and the crowning achievement
of his career, but he would soon be overshadowed at
his own ceremony. As the final ball went and then
(04:01):
they started to clear the ete green, they reporting kind
of ropes around the sides as well, and I was
able to, you know, just kind of walk onto the green,
and that's the security guy grabs and windows like you
shouldn't be here, your approval or whatever. I turned around
to kind of cuts into the crowd, but then it
not gone. I remember standing and getting ready to you know,
your knaves are off the roof, and I just start
remembered in the back of my mind thinking that you
(04:22):
shouldn't be doing this. If you mess it up, it's
gonna be super emboglous. And you know, I kind of
just pushed myself from left foot forward. The white will followed,
and the adrenaline just kicks him. The US Open trophy
ceremony is as formal as it gets. Bob cost Us
in a blue blazer and tie, is interviewing Simpson in
a polo cardigan cradling an eighteen inch sterling silver jug
(04:44):
and all of a sudden, standing between the two of
them and the camera is Jungle Bird with a big
smile on his face, sporting a red and white Union
Jack mohawk beanie and a matching windbreaker. I was so
that I stopped at the white position because it was
pretty much in focus on the camera. I just remember
(05:06):
all these lights going off and the photographs being taken.
Simpson's answer to a question about his slow start is
interrupted by this sound stop the photo station, and before
he can get out, a third bird call U s
g A. President Mike Davis is on Jungle Bird like
(05:26):
a cat. His reflexes were lightning fast, and I didn't
see it coming for sure. Grabbed me and dragged me
out the way and then threw me into a bunker
and I managed to stay upright, which which was quite lucky.
And then the San Francisco Police Department came and they
arrested me and led me awayne handcuffs, and people were
(05:46):
clapping as he was getting let at the steps, and
then the search of me for drugs and stuff like that,
and then they realized I wasn't really a threat, and
then they were quite friendly, you know, they were quite
having a laugh out of it. And then they put
me in the van and then drove me down to
the San Francisco Free Station or the bad cages I
call it. And how long were you in jail for her?
A good couple of hours, So I think they were
(06:07):
working out what to do with me because I haven't
had a ticket to the event, I hadn't trespassed so
and I didn't do anything offensive. I was fully closed,
so in the end it just let me go. The
first thing that when I got out of jail was
going to the local bar and have a couple of years.
How do you balance your desire to get your message
out with taking away from one of the most important
(06:30):
moments in someone else's life. It's a It's a fine line,
isn't it. You know, my job was to try and
raise awareness to the problem of climates. I'm also conscious
that it was a very important moment for webs. I
trust that he understood that the reason for it after
the fact, and he's always been very understanding of it
from what I can see, and I think that I've
had interviews a web Simpson sent and he said, you know,
(06:53):
if he walks into a restaurant and his family, people
are and he's definitely had a good sense of you.
But if had He tweeted me one time with one
of the jack hats on the rito and he said,
I'm not going to be coming after you. After the
US Open video bombing jungle Bird went viral, he was
interviewed on Kimmel and Leno. Imitators popped up at sporting events.
Jungle Bird was a popular Halloween costume that year. It
(07:15):
quickly became and is still the most famous sports video
bomb of all time. But why, I think it's just
the sponsorous of it. My kids are often sending medlings
most rememorable moments of TV. Its all over Facebook and
was on the news in England and stuff. You know,
the way they pan out did bring a lot of
you to the moment. And what's your message for people
(07:36):
who have a cause and aren't quite sure about how
to draw attention to it? So I was upset about
the climb, as I was upset about defoll station that
was concerned for the future of the Planet for the
children book. You know, a lot of us can sit
on the sidelines and not do anything about that. So
for me, it was taking our first step of action,
and by taking our first step of action, things begun
(07:57):
to happen. Jungle Bird started his own environmental technology company
to deal with the problem and deforestation in part of
the success of the Simpson video bar. It was kind
of a door opener, to be honest, from that activist
a moment. It kind of showed my commitment and also
my commitment to other people. But then also you can
(08:18):
show them that you've been in handcuffs to stand off
for the natural environment, and that really is a game
changing for those guys as well, because they really feel
that you are kind of walking the talk. And what
was your plan for an encore the next year at
the US Open? I was going to do the same
thing again, and I flew in from England and then
when I landed in Philadelphia, I got pulled aside by
(08:38):
two T. S A Agents and I got under a
letter and it was from the U s g A
Golf Association kind of warning me not to attend the
event or I could get arrested. But I've got an
FBI number now somethink a lot of activists have returned.
When I got my visa to emigrate to America, I
found out that I've got this number. So whenever a
comin I can sometimes get questioned, like an extra level
(08:59):
of question, like what are you doing what you want
to do? These days? At every major golf tournament, jungle
birds photo is posted at the entrance to keep him out.
Not being able to attend live golf is a small
price for jungle Bird to pay. If you really believe
in someone, you know, that sense of satisfaction that you
(09:21):
ought to take. Understand this is very to me, has
been very empowering. You know, you will the risk of
getting into some serious trouble, but it's it's there's nothing
like it, you know. I found a calling, basically, and
I think if you're ever lucky enough so to find
not in life that you're doing someone that you really
truly believe in them, it's great achievements. I think. Alright,
(09:41):
time for a quick break. On the other side, a
story about athletes and buzzers that has nothing to do
with the Houston Astros. I'd always known that there were
dodgy things happening behind the scenes, and that you know,
people want to achieve. It changed me a bit to
have become up nose to nose against it and to
(10:02):
really see the reality in Diana Ray was a staff
writer for the Dallas Observer. Being in Texas, she often
wrote about oil, energy and NASA, and occasionally horse racing,
a sport she had developed an interest in thanks to
a tattered book she carried around. That book see this
get you know that that's one of those books that
changed my life because that it opened up a world
(10:24):
that I didn't really know about. And I just became
fascinated with the world of horse racing and how these
you know, horse and man work together. Then how also
the trainer is so key and then you know some
people follow the rules, some people don't, and it just
really fascinated me. So I would sort of keep an
eye on it. And then, uh, you know, this Roman
(10:46):
Chapa things just popped up right in my back yard.
This Roman Chapa thing happened during a fifty horse racing
stakes at the Sam Houston Race Park, which is a
cry from Churchill Downs. You will probably see plenty of
(11:06):
people wearing leopard prints lots of bets being made, lots
of cheap beer being pulled. No one's wearing fancy hats.
We don't even see throw breads down here. It's a
very low rent situation. Running in the ninth race of
the night was Quiet Acceleration, a horse with a distant
connection to past greatness, you know, like how everyone in
England probably could claim some relation to royalty, the same
(11:29):
thing where he has in his background the legendary secretariat.
And then give me a splint you can kind of
see it a little bit in the horse's this beautiful
espresso brown, gorgeous creature, a little bit of white on
the edges, and just really beautiful force. The race began
and Quiet Acceleration was running in the middle of the pack,
(11:51):
boxed in by the rest of the field. It didn't
look good for him. As they're going through the backstretch
and then rounding towards home, we suddenly see Quiet Eleration
began to make some progress forward and right at the end,
like magic, one of those beautiful moments, Quiet Accelerations that
(12:11):
just zooms forward and gets to the finish line, first
hits the wire and he wins, and it's a great moment.
Every racetrack has a camera set up on one side
of the finish line to capture a potential photo finish,
and from that side everything looks fine. When Chappa jolted
across the finish line very quickly, however, there was a photographer,
(12:34):
Jack Cody, who was shooting from the other rail and
he caught a slightly different picture. Unaware that anything was amiss, Cody,
like he does after every race, sent out his photos
(12:54):
to Sam Houston Racetrack officials, who uploaded them to their website.
When he starts getting a bunch of text messages and
phone calls from Chapa saying, hey, there was this one photo.
You take it down to you please get rid of it,
please please, please, please please. Unbeknownst to Cody, one of
the photos he posted online showed in Chapa's left hand
(13:14):
an electronic device the size of a cigarette lighter. To
those in the know, it was unmistakably a buzzer used
to send powerful shocks into a horse to jolt it forward.
Then the local press started digging in. The initial guy
that was covering for us is like, um, this is
(13:34):
about forces. You're still carrying it with you like a
WEIRDO take it. So I was like, okay, cool, So
I started looking into it. But after I'm reporting anything,
I like to go back to the beginning. So if
I'm writing about trains or high speed rail, I want
to go back to the invention of the wheel. When
I'm writing about horse racing, I went back and first
(13:56):
did a whole bunch of research to understand horse racing history,
and then it's it's also it's history in Texas. And
then once I feel like I know everything a real
door could know about the subject, then I start really
reporting and asking questions and reaching out to people. Ray
found out quickly that Texas horse racing was a very
insular world that didn't take kindly to a probing outside reporter.
(14:20):
So you have to sort of feel your way in
and know somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody to
get them to talk to you. And that's where you
get weird and stalkery and start texting and blowing up
their phones. It's been like Hi, Hi, please talk to
me please. Ray managed to speak with Cody the photographer,
and Dallas Keen, the trainer. As for Roman Chapa, Oh,
(14:41):
I got his phone number and I called it over
and over again, left messages, texted um, tried different email,
blew up as Twitter because I wanted to hear his side.
I I've always felt that his side is not necessarily justifiable,
but interesting maybe worth hearing. You know, there's two sides
(15:03):
every story. On one hand, the jockeys honestly are under
an enormous amount of pressure to win. On the other hand,
the horses are just doing their best and don't understand
any of what's going on. They're just, you know, oh,
time to race. I love to run and they want
to be the other wars. So it's complicated. You know.
I don't like what Roman Chapa did, but I've thought
(15:23):
about it a lot ever since, and you know, in
some ways you can almost understand it. And are we
to assume that this was the only race that Roman
Chapa used a buzzer or did they look back at
other races and see similar surges and think to themselves,
even though we don't have evidence, this must have been
going on for a long time. I mean, no one
(15:47):
really knows that for sure. He had already been suspended
twenty five times for Britain rules in the past, so
he already had a fairly long and substantial record, and
I don't know they've necessarily been caught with a buzzer before,
but he had been caught early in his queer back
in the nineties using a nail. I mean, what's so
disgusting about this really is forrces like to run, so
(16:09):
the idea that he just sit there and then shock
them or stabbed them or do anything painful to them,
it's just appalling. It's basically taking some kind of an
electric zap to the flank of a marathon runner, which
if anyone did that they would be arrested and in
a lot of trouble. And as a jockey before this incident,
(16:32):
how successful was Roman Chapa. Roman Chapa was good. He
was good enough that he had a fairly decent record
and was winning in Texas racing. He was a not
undistinguished writer who had had a career that had already
spanned more than twenty years. But you know, he was
never going to be riding for Tuppy Derby. At the
(16:52):
time of this incident, Chapa had won one thousand, seven
hundred and eleven races and his mounts that earned in
excess of million dollars. Very little of which had made
its way to Chapa. From what I understand, they get
fifty dollars per race versus I think a ten kind
of the person if you win, But otherwise they're having
to supplement that with doing training rides and like working
(17:16):
a lot behind the scenes. You know, it can be
a difficult living. From everything I've ever heard, Chapa has
been badly injured at least twice. At one point he
stopped breathing on the table and then he got back
in the saddle, though, and he said that was where
he was meant to be. So the more you read
about the life of the jockey, and the more you
think about what it must be like to try to
(17:37):
hustle up this living, my own anger turned to some
empathy ors some sympathy form. Is there any chance that
Roman Chapa was using a buzzer at the directive of
the trainer and he was just doing what he was told? Um, well,
it's not exactly necessarily that any jockey in such situation
(17:58):
will be doing what they're told. But there's jockeys from
my reporting I learned that are known for having a
certain reputation and that maybe you're willing to do a
little extra, or bend the rules a little bit this
way that way to give a horse and advantage. I
don't know if anyone to say, go use that buzzer,
partly because that we're very stupid of them, because who
(18:19):
wants to have exposed themselves as being the guy just
said that. But if you hire someone who is known
to use a buzzer, I think there are plenty of
ways of saying, hey, I really like the horse to
win in a way that could you know, give someone
who has that kind of reputation the right idea. Chapa's
(18:43):
case wound its way through the Texas legal system for years.
It was during one of Chapa's court appearances that Ray
finally came in contact with him. I managed to make
it down to the courthouse in time, and I don't know,
like you know that jockeys are very small. They have
to be. But at the same time, at that point
I had been chasing Chapa so long, and I had
(19:04):
been just trying to get to talk to the man
and thinking about him and trying to understand who he
was and where he was. From that I was still
shocked by how how little he was. Do you look
more sad? Than he did anything else. We hadn't shaved
in a little bit, and I found myself really feeling
sorry for him in that moment. For his role in
(19:26):
the buzzer incident. The Texas Racing Commission find Chap a
hundred thousand dollars and he was suspended from racing for
five years. However, there are these illegal races that some
people do, and I heard rumors that he was riding
in those. It's not clear that it was Chappa, but
sometime in seventeen during one of those races, and videos
(19:49):
started circulating right after because there was a collision of
two horses and a writer who looked a lot like
Chapa and who a lot of people called Chapa in
the video started making the rounds on Facebook. And whoever
that writer was was very badly injured in an illegal race.
Paris County charged him with unlawful influence in racing and
(20:10):
making false statements to an investigator the ladder, of which
he played guilty too. I finished by asking Ray what
she thought about the decision of the legal system to
get so involved in this case. You know, like it,
I think ultimately was the right thing to do. If
you don't do something and if if the law doesn't
get involved, would this keep going? Would it get worse?
(20:31):
If you're gonna do something that to a horse, it
probably helps to know that. Oh remember Roman chapla, he
buzzard a horse and look what happened to him? All right?
Thank you too, Diana Ray and Andrew Dudley a k A.
Jungle Bird for sharing their stories. For more stories from Diana,
check out Houstonia, where she is the editor in chief,
and for information about jungle birds environmental causes, check out
(20:55):
his website earth PBC dot com. And if you're liking
the podcast, please take a minute to rate and review
on iTunes. It's a big help, and also be sure
to dig into the archives for tales of cheating and
deception in all your favorite sports. Next week, we've got
a story of a Miami dolphin and an alligator that
was sent to us by a listener. So if you
have ideas for future shows, please hit the tip line
(21:15):
the email addresses Trickeration Nation at gmail dot com. I'd
love to hear from you. And as we do every week,
we check in with the legend Chris mad Doug Russo, Chris,
how do we do this week? Maddie, good job, keep
up the good work now. Thanks Chris, all right, talk
to you next week. Triggeration is a production of my
heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
(21:36):
the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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