Touchuponastar, the standout Louisiana-bred 6-year-old, has returned to regular training after his ridiculously easy Dec. 13 win in the Louisiana Champions Day Classic. Where and when he races next remains to be decided. Jake Delhomme, the principal in Set-Hut, Touchuponastar’s owner, already has done plenty of thinking about the gelding’s near-term future. He’ll do plenty more. “There’s a lot to think about,” Delhomme said Friday morning. “I don’t look at that as a burden. I look at it as a privilege.” Touchuponastar has run up a career record of 26-19-4-2 in part by capturing his last 16 starts in Louisiana-bred competition. No one there can touch him in a dirt route. Touchuponastar’s last two losses came over sloppy tracks, and one of them, his fifth-place finish last May in the Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star Park, came up on the Beyer Speed Figure scale as the slowest race he’d run since July of his 2-year-old season. :: Big Action in the Big Easy at Fair Grounds! DRF Past Performances and Picks are available now. Touchuponastar had finished second in two previous starts in the Sexton Mile, a Grade 3 that annually marks the gelding’s last outing before a summer respite, and he has proven he fits in open graded stakes company. In March 2024, he finished second in the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic, and this past March, he won it by two lengths. The last two seasons, Touchuponastar has gone from the Champions Day Classic to the Premier Championship in early February at Delta Downs, and then on to the New Orleans Classic. That’s one of two paths to consider. The other involves shipping to Gulfstream Park for the $3 million Pegasus World Cup on Jan. 24. Delhomme said he’s talked with Gulfstream people about the possibility of running. “Is that something we want to entertain? We need to see who’s going there and whatnot,” Delhomme said. Lone Star lies 330 miles from the Copper Crowne Equestrian Center in Opelousas, La., where Touchuponastar has lived and worked for years. A van ride to Gulfstream would take roughly 15 hours. Even if Touchuponastar shipped well and ran well, what would the race and the travel do to his carefully plotted career arc? Delhomme, his brother, trainer Jeff Delhomme, and their father, trainer Jerry Delhomme, have done everything they can – summers off, limited starts – to preserve their horse of a lifetime, and it’s worked. Touchuponastar turns 7 in a couple of weeks and looks better than ever. His Beyer pattern, starting with the 2024 Champions Day Classic, is 99-100-109-101-83-104-108-101. That’s serious stuff, and Touchuponastar shows no sign of slowing. His people want to keep things that way. “I can’t say we’re not having the time of our life,” Delhomme said. “My dad’s 80 years old. He beats Jeff and I to the barn every morning, and a lot of it has to do with what we have in the barn. This is a different horse. He’s special. I would love to be able to keep him around for a bit.” So, there’s the choice: Hit the road and take on high-level open competition in January or stay home and wait for them to come to you two months later in the New Orleans Classic. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.