Anatomy of an 80-1 Kentucky Derby Shocker: David Papadopoulos

Pace makes the race is about as old an adage as there is in horse racing. It’s a simple axiom: When the leaders gallop along at a moderate tempo at the start, they preserve the energy needed to fend off the come-from-behind horses in the stretch; when the leaders go fast early, they knock themselves out, and the advantage goes to the closers.

In Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, the leaders didn’t just go fast, they went at a supersonic clip.