The Ghost of Delta Downs

It’s the year 1990, in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, where a horse race is about to get started. A thick fog has settled on Delta Downs Racecourse. Visibility for this one-mile race is almost zero. It seems like winning is going to be a close-your-eyes-and-hope situation. But jockey Sylvester Carmouche has a sneaky plan to take them all by surprise. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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

(00:24):
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

(00:48):
where we celebrate the winners, losers, and the weird stuff between.
I'm Tony Armstrong. Sylvester Carrmusch was an experienced jockey, celebrated

(01:18):
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

(01:39):
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.

(02:08):
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

(02:30):
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

(02:52):
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

(03:13):
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.

(03:35):
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

(03:57):
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

(04:24):
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

(04:49):
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,

(05:33):
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.