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The Super Derby (gr. II) will be run this Saturday at Louisiana Downs. Past champions to win the race include Alysheba, Sunday Silence, and Tiznow.

First run in 1980, the Super Derby was originally a 10-furlong end-of-season showdown for three-year-olds. The inaugural race offered a Travers exacta rematch, with Belmont-Travers-Jockey Club Gold Cup winner Temperence Hill once again getting the better of Swaps Stakes winner First Albert.

With the advent of the Breeders' Cup in 1984, the Super Derby became a prep for the Classic. In that year's renewal, Preakness winner Gate Dancer edged out Precisionist before waiting a then-unprecedented seven weeks for the BC Classic, where he finished a nose behind Wild Again only to be (controversially) disqualified to third for interfering with Slew o' Gold.

TrueNicks proudly lists six Super Derby champions on its roster: My Pal Charlie (TrueNicks,SRO), The Daddy (TrueNicks,SRO), Fantasticat (TrueNicks,SRO), Ten Most Wanted (TrueNicks,SRO), Tiznow (TrueNicks,SRO), and Arch (TrueNicks,SRO) were all victorious in the race.

Here's a look back at three Super Derby winners who went on to be top sires. Sunday Silence overcame a nondescript pedigree to become a breed-shaping influence in Japan, where he sired 44 grade I winners. Similarly, Tiznow defied early naysayers to emerge as one of the most commercial and versatile stallions in Kentucky. Claiborne Farm blueblood Arch, meanwhile, has sired to his classic bloodlines, with Blame, Pine Island, and Arravale among his grade I winners to date.

Filed under: Sires, Race Previews