The Kentucky Derby Is a Two-Horse Race: David Papadopoulos

This year’s Kentucky Derby is pretty simple, really. There’s a superstar in the field by the name of Fierceness, and if he breaks alertly and secures a position near the front of the pack, the only question might be how much he wins by.

In his last race down in South Florida, he rolled to a 13 1/2-length victory as his rider, the great John Velazquez, sat chilly in the saddle, a cigarette in one hand and a martini in the other. OK, OK, I made up the cigarette and martini thing but you get the idea. It was pretty damn easy. He’d won in similar fashion a couple times before. The chink in his armor: The two times he got out of the gate sluggishly, he was defeated.