For Jake Delhomme, a repeat of Louisiana Champions Day 2023 would work just fine. A year ago, Touchuponastar beat just three rivals as an odds-on favorite winning his second Champions Day Classic before Mangum rallied from 13th to land the Champions Day Sprint, giving Delhomme’s Set-Hut a Louisiana stakes double. Saturday at Fair Grounds, Touchuponastar faces no more than four foes in the $150,000 Classic, while Mangum comes into the $100,000 Sprint on the same pattern that won him the 2023 renewal. Delhomme’s brother, Jeff Delhomme, trains both horses. Their father, Jerry Delhomme, runs Cosmic Train for owner Delanie Calais Jr. in the Classic. Touchuponastar, purchased at auction by Delhomme for $15,000, has rated as the fastest Louisiana-bred in training the last couple years, and shares top billing Saturday with Free Like a Girl, the richest Louisiana-bred ever, who cuts back from routes to try the Champions Day Ladies Sprint. The all-Louisiana-bred 10-race card includes seven stakes. There are more stakes on Saturday than rivals for Touchuponastar in the 1 1/8-mile Classic, positioned early on the card as race 3, owing to the short field and the favorite’s short odds, which will wind up in the 1-5 range. :: Subscribe to the DRF Post Time Email Newsletter: Get the news you need to play today's races!  That’s despite Touchuponastar, a 5-year-old by Star Guitar, checking in a well-beaten third Nov. 8 in the $100,000 Delta Mile, his first outing since May 27. Touchuponastar broke flat-footed from the rail, raced mid-pack, found a spot of traffic past the quarter pole, and then could only finish evenly. No worries, according to Jake Delhomme. Touchuponastar had been scheduled to launch his fall and winter campaign facing Louisiana-breds in the Gold Cup in October. “He got a little sick leading into that, we missed time, and he wasn’t quite ready,” Delhomme said. “The Delta Mile is an open race and was a lot tougher. We thought he could have been a little short going into it. He came out of it great. He’s a big, heavy horse, and you could just tell that race tightened him up. He’s breathing fire right now.” Touchuponastar has won eight Louisiana-bred stakes in a row. He finished second last March in the Grade 2 New Orleans Classic over 1 1/8 miles and figures to dominate Saturday’s contest from the front end under regular jockey Tim Thornton. The six-furlong Sprint hardly could look more different than the Classic, 13 entrants and a mad jumble of plausible winners, including last year’s. Mangum in 2023 ran in a Delta allowance sprint around two turns and the Jake Morreale Memorial, a route at Fair Grounds, before closing with a purpose to land the Sprint. The same two races, the Delta allowance and a solid fourth in the Morreale, have the gelding where connections want him. “I think the race is loaded with speed, which is good. It’ll be a trip race for us,” Delhomme said. The morning-line favorite at 3-1, Jack Hammer races for the first time since March 2, and while not hapless in sprints, his best races have come in routes. El Dinero just missed running down pacesetting Geaux Sugar, another Sprint entrant, in the $100,000 Andrew Ney Memorial on Nov. 23, and stands as good a chance as anyone. The pick, however, is Good and Stout, set too high at 15-1 on the morning line and winner a year ago of the Champions Day Juvenile, where he nipped El Dinero. A 2024 Champions Day that looks like 2023 would mean a seriously contending run for Good and Stout – and a third Classic for Touchuponastar. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.