A ‘Touch’ of class: Jake Delhomme is enjoying his run with ‘the horse of a lifetime’

(Breaux Bridge La.) - The Acadiana Advocate - BY JEFF DUNCAN | Sports columnist The Breaux Bridge native was a star quarterback for 11 seasons in the NFL, earning spots in the Carolina Panthers Hall of Honor and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. He’s a big deal in just about every corner of Cajun Country.

So when Lonnie Briley jumped down from his perch overlooking the training track at the Copper Crowne Equestrian Center on a recent morning and ambled over to see Delhomme outside his barn, the former NFL star took it in stride.

“I’ve only seen him on TV,” Briley said with a wide grin. “I’m excited to finally see him in person.”

It wasn’t Delhomme, though, that had Briley gobsmacked. It was the strapping brown colt loping by Delhomme’s side: Touchuponastar.

“What’s not to like about him?” Briley said, circling the handsome thoroughbred like he was sizing up a new car on the sales lot. “He’s the best horse in Louisiana.”

Briley knows a good horse when he sees one. The veteran trainer from Opelousas has won more than 350 races in his 36-year training career and saddled Coal Battle in the Kentucky Derby last year. But he might be understating Touchuponastar’s credentials. An argument can be made that Delhomme’s speedy Louisiana-bred is the fastest horse in America.

“Touch,” as he’s known around the Delhomme barn, has won a remarkable 20 of 27 lifetime races and earned more than $1.7 million, making him the third-highest earning Louisiana-bred of all time. He’s entered to run in the $500,000 Grade II New Orleans Classic on Saturday at the Fair Grounds, where he’ll try to repeat the most significant win of his illustrious career against a field of five other older stakes horses.

“I’m biased, but I think he’s the best Louisiana-bred to ever live,” said Jeff Delhomme, Jake’s older brother, who serves as the official trainer for Touch. “Who’s to say, but I think he’s the best horse in the country.”

A heritage in horse racing

Horses have run in the Delhomme family for three generations. Jake’s grandfather, Sanders Delhomme, raced quarter horses at bush tracks in the Breaux Bridge and Carencro areas during the 1940s and 1950s. Their father, Jerry, started riding for his father at the age of 8 and eventually raised racehorses on the family’s 10-acre farm in Breaux Bridge. The Delhomme boys, Jake and older brother, Jeff, who would go on to break records as a receiver at McNeese State, regularly worked with the horses in the barn stalls behind the family home.

“We didn’t hunt or fish,” Jake Delhomme said. “We played sports and worked with the horses. It was fun. There was something about the horses. I just loved it.”

Delhomme stayed involved with the horses throughout his football career, from his all-state days at Teurlings Catholic in Lafayette to his standout four-year tenure at UL (then Southwestern Louisiana), where he led the Ragin’ Cajuns to two Big West Conference championships and an upset of Texas A&M. The highlight of his 11-year NFL career came in 2003, when he led the Carolina Panthers to their first Super Bowl appearance and passed for 323 yards and three touchdowns in a last-second 32-29 loss to the New England Patriots.

Delhomme launched his stable in 2012, the year after he retired from the NFL, and called it Set-Hut in honor of his playing position. He designed his jockey silks in Carolina Panthers colors and named many of his horses after football terms, former teammates or plays from the Panthers offense (Two Jet, Z Smoke, X Clown).

Set-Hut is a family operation. In football terms, Jake is the general manager of the five-person stable, but Jerry, a retired state and federal meat inspector, and Jeff are also heavily involved. The Delhommes do it all: care, condition, buy, sell and breed. When they enter a horse to race at the Fair Grounds, the Delhommes trailer him the 150 miles down I-10 in their Ford pickups.

The traits Delhomme applied to ascend to the elite level of football — preparation, attention to detail, disciplined work ethic — have been employed with equal success in his horse racing operation. Through last week, his horses have won 133 of 614 starts for a more-than-respectable 21% win percentage. The stable’s career earnings are more than $5.6 million.

“The time he spent studying the playbook and watching film to prepare for games as a player, he spends just as much time studying pedigrees and watching races.” Jeff Delhomme said. “There’s no better horseman in the country. He’s second to none.”

“It’s a testament to Jake and his family and how they manage and treat their horses,” said Andrew Cary, a bloodstock agent who is close to the former NFL quarterback. “Coming from his athletic background, Jake can evaluate an equine athlete and adjust on the fly. He gets the most out of his horses at all levels.”

Jake Delhomme doesn’t just train. He is involved at all levels of the sport. He sat on the board of the Louisiana Thoroughbred Breeders Association and has counseled Gov. Jeff Landry on horse racing affairs in the state.

“I’m a very competitive person, and horse racing is as competitive as it gets,” Jake Delhomme said. “If I'm going to do something, then let's put our effort into it and let's do it. Horse racing fills that competitive void for me after football.”

‘What a beast’

Delhomme has enjoyed success throughout his tenure, especially in recent years, when his stable’s annual earnings have climbed to more than $900,000 annually. Two of the stable stars, Mangum and Kalil, were named after two of Delhomme’s former Panthers teammates, tight end Kris Mangum and center Ryan Kalil. But none of Delhomme’s horses have come close to achieving Touch’s astonishing level of success.

The 6-year-old gelding has won eight of his last nine races, including the $150,000 Louisiana Premier Night Championship Stakes last month at Delta Downs, where he cantered to an 11½-length win against an overmatched field. It was the fourth consecutive time he’s won the race and his final time of 1 minute, 44.03 seconds earned a 106 Beyer Speed Figure, the standardized metric for thoroughbred racehorses created by former Washington Post columnist Andrew Beyer. No older horse in the nation has recorded a higher speed figure in a distance race this year. And last year, Touch recorded even faster Beyer figures for winning the Delta Mile (109) and New Orleans Handicap (109).

“I’m a very competitive person, and horse racing is as competitive as it gets. If I'm going to do something, then let's put our effort into it and let's do it. Horse racing fills that competitive void for me after football.”

For perspective, there have been only 16 Beyer Speed Figures of 106 or higher recorded by older horses in classic U.S. distance races since the start of the 2025 racing season. Touch has recorded three of them. Sovereignty, the brilliant 2025 Kentucky Derby champion, with two, is the only other horse with more than one.

“What a beast,” said Keith Myers, who bred Touch at his Coteau Grove Farm in Sunset, just north of Lafayette. “He wins these races so effortlessly. He doesn’t like to take pictures with anyone. No horse is ever in the frame when he crosses the finish line.”

Few envisioned such a remarkable run when Touch was born in 2019. The son of the champion Louisiana-bred sire, Star Guitar, and graded-stakes-winning mare, Touch Magic, he was well-bred by Louisiana standards. Delhomme noticed the striking resemblance Touch had to his sire during his early visits to the farm with Cary, a longtime friend in the business. As a weanling, he was strong and perceptive and displayed a good demeanor.

“There was something about him that just stuck out,” Jake Delhomme said.

Nevertheless, Myers had modest expectations for Touch’s sales prospects when he sent him to the Texas Thoroughbred Association Yearling Sale in August 2020. It didn’t help matters that the sale took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and a classic East Texas heat wave.

“We had no expectations really,” Myers said. “We thought we were going to be bringing him back to the farm and putting him in the equestrian program. But Jake said he would take him and try to race him, and if he could run at all, he thought we might get some breeder’s awards for him.”

Delhomme’s opening bid of $15,000 was the only offer.

“I had a lot more to spend for him, but for whatever reason, that's where the bidding stopped,” Delhomme said.

Years later, Cary calls it “one of the all-time great purchases in horse racing history.”

“It was a perfect storm of it being a COVID year, a lightly attended sale and it being about 110 degrees that day in Texas,” he said.

While Delhomme had targeted Touch and made the trip to Grand Prairie, Texas, specifically to buy Touch and another colt he later named Home Visit, he had no idea he’d just purchased a superstar.

Touch showed athleticism and talent during his early training sessions, but his workouts never opened eyes or revealed his precocity until the final breeze before his debut. Working with stablemate, Home Visit, a fellow 3-year-old who’d already won two of his three starts, Touch bolted from the starting gate and left his competition in a trail of dust.

“We looked at each other, like, ‘Ohhhh, (expletive),’” Jeff Delhomme said.

Added Jake Delhomme: “Home Visit was a quality horse, but he cried uncle. It was not pretty. The jockey came back and said, ‘Yeah, this horse is just different.’”

A few weeks later, Touch ran a disappointing second in his debut at Fair Grounds, showing his inexperience by stumbling out of the gate and being forced to race wide for most of his six-furlong trip. Six weeks later, he returned to the races and broke his maiden at 1-5 odds with a stunning 21-length score at Evangeline Downs in a performance so dominant it drew a “Wow!” from track announcer Rob Tuel as he crossed the finish line. His time of 1:22.82 was less than a second off the track record for 7 furlongs.

From there, Touch reeled off wins in 11 of his next 14 races and established himself as the best distance horse in the Louisiana-bred ranks. To that end, he dusted Tumbarumba by 1½ lengths in the 2023 Louisiana Champions Day Classic. Tumbarumba recently became the highest-earning Louisiana-bred in history with $3.2 million in winnings when he ran an impressive third to Breeders Cup Classic champion Forever Young in the $20 million Grade I Saudi Cup.

“We ran against (Tumbarumba),” Jeff Delhomme said. “We could have went around the track 10 times, and he would have never beat (Touchuponastar).”

Touch’s coming-out party, though, came a year ago at the Fair Grounds, when he wired the field in the $500,000 Grade I New Orleans Classic against a field of open-company older horses, including graded stakes winners Sierre Leone, Hall of Fame and Komorebino Omoide. It was the first time Touch had run against “the big boys,” as Delhomme called them, and he passed the test with flying colors.

Touch broke on the lead and carved out fast fractions with a ground-saving rail trip under jockey Tim Thornton. When the field turned for home, Hall of Fame loomed to his flank, but Touch responded to the challenge and held him at bay to the wire. As his stable star crossed the final line for the 1½-length victory, Delhomme uncharacteristically leaped in the air and spiked his program in celebration.

“I was just so happy for the horse,” Jake said. “It was unbelievably rewarding and validated what we thought of him.”

A great Louisiana horse racing story

Touchuponastar has shown no signs of slowing down as he approaches his seventh birthday, which just happens to fall on Louisiana Derby Day. The competition in the New Orleans Classic will be steep again. Two entrants from the powerful Todd Pletcher barn, Accelerize, who won the $175,000 Grade III Louisiana Stakes at Fair Grounds in January, and Life and Times, will likely test him for every step of the 1⅛ mile trip.

It will take their best to beat Touch on his home turf, though. His confidence has soared with each subsequent win. Jake compared his alpha demeanor on race days to Simba, when he assumes his reign in The Lion King.

“When he walks in the paddock, he takes a deep breath and just stares at all the horses passing by,” Jeff Delhomme said. “He makes sure his head is taller, that’s him looking down on them, trying to intimidate them.”

Added Jake: “He doesn’t bat an eye. He just looks. He knows what he’s about to do. He’s not just smart. He’s brilliant.”

Touch’s historic run of success has made him a minor celebrity in Cajun Country. The Delhommes are constantly asked by friends and family about his upcoming schedule, and the winner’s circle has become increasingly crowded after each of his wins.

“There’s nothing that makes me happier than seeing this happen for the Delhomme family,” Myers said. “I don’t know of anyone more deserving. It’s such a great horse racing story for Louisiana.”

Touch has impacted the Delhommes beyond the earnings book. Jake believes the horse’s historic run of success has had an intrinsic effect on his family’s quality of life, especially his father, who suffered a severe heart attack four years ago.

“(Touch) means a lot to him, and there’s no doubt in my mind it’s kept him going,” Jake said of his father, who turned 80 in December. “You don’t find somebody that dies with a good horse in the barn. There’s something about a horse that’s good for the soul of human.

“Touch is not just the horse of a lifetime. He’s the horse of two lifetimes.”

Photo by Brad Kemp