Touchuponastar, who won the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic in March at Fair Grounds, is on a bit of a busman’s holiday for the summer and is scheduled to return to racing this fall, owner Jake Delhomme said Tuesday.
“We’ve done it the last two years,” he said.
Touchuponastar is based at a training center in Louisiana. He ranks fourth in all-time earnings among Louisiana-breds with $1,460,000. Delhomme said the Louisiana-bred stakes for older route horses over the summer are on turf and that fact, coupled with the heat, made for the decision to freshen Touchuponastar.
“We’ll occasionally send him out to the track to jog if it’s rainy,” he said. “He gets turned out in the round pen early, a couple of hours a day. We graze him a lot, just give him a little time. We’ll get started back with him in the middle of July, somewhere around there. We’ll kind of get back and start making plans for September, October, somewhere in there.”
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Touchuponastar earned a career-high Beyer Speed Figure of 109 for his win in the New Orleans Classic. It was part of a streak of four straight stakes victories from December to May.
Touchuponastar last raced May 26 and finished an uncharacteristic fifth in the Grade 3, $400,000 Steve Sexton Mile at Lone Star Park. The track was listed as sloppy on an afternoon when it rained for much of the card and a hard hit of precipitation dropped as the horses were leaving the paddock for the Sexton Mile.
“In the words of [jockey] Tim Thornton, ‘I felt within two jumps, he’s not loving it,’ ” Delhomme said. “The racetrack was soupy, to say the least. The rain was just non-stop. It is what it is. But he came out of it absolutely great. Really wasn’t overly tired, but he’ll get his customary little R and R right now.”
“Hopefully, he can stay at the level he’s been at. I feel good that he’ll continue to be that way. He looks like an absolute picture, looks great and certainly is enjoying his time, getting a little sun on his back, to stay the least.”
Touchuponastar is a 6-year-old son of Star Guitar who is trained by Jeff Delhomme.
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