Touchuponastar cruises to three-peat in Louisiana Champions Day Classic

Touchuponastar won the Louisiana Champions Day Classic for the third year in a row on Saturday at Fair Grounds. It wasn’t close, and it was never in doubt.

Making nearly all the running, Touchuponastar cruised through the homestretch, jockey Tim Thornton looking more like an exercise rider out for a morning breeze than a jockey in a $150,000 race. The margin of victory was 5 1/4 lengths, the win payoff $2.40. Touchuponastar won the 2022 Classic by 4 3/4 and beat the good horse Tumbarumba by 1 1/2 lengths a year ago, and on Saturday, none of his four rivals came close to his class.

The $90,000 winner’s share of the purse pushed Touchuponastar’s earnings over $1 million. Second this past March in the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic, Touchuponastar sports a 19-13-4-2 record for Jake Delhomme’s Set-Hut LLC and trainer Jeff Delhomme, Jake’s brother. Touchuponastar, by Star Guitar out of Touch Magic, by Lion Heart, was purchased for $15,000 at a 2020 Louisiana auction – a bargain, indeed.

Five-year-old Touchuponastar, well managed throughout his career, got a summer break after losing the Steve Sexton Mile on May 27 at Lone Star Park by a neck, and Jake Delhomme said the gelding missed his intended comeback start in October because of a relatively minor illness. In need of an outing, Touchuponastar finished third in the Delta Mile, his first race since the Sexton, and, true to Delhomme’s forecast, he improved Saturday.

Touchuponastar looked unbeatable on paper, and when he coasted through an opening half mile in 49.48, it was game over in the Classic. Winning time for 1 1/8 miles over a fast track was 1:50.93. Benoit finished a distant second, Cosmic Train third. Nobody came close to touching Touchuponastar.

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